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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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’
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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.” ...
GLP podcast: Three phony health fads making your wallet lighter
"It really implies risk when there is none." That's how geneticist and farmer Kevin Folta summarizes the fatal flaw behind ...
Four ways to strip carbon out of agriculture and limit farming’s climate impacts
Carbon is a “hot topic” in an age of Climate Change (pun intended). That is playing out in unique ways ...
GLP spaces on X: Psychedelics—groundbreaking depression therapies or dangerous drugs?
The number of Americans suffering from depression continues to follow an alarming trend. In 2023, roughly 47 million people reported ...
Just because a chemical ingredient used in food is found in household products or medicine does not mean its unsafe
"Many food-grade additives share names with industrial products, but concentration makes all the difference," said Jessica Steier, a public health ...
‘A historic failure’: MIT management professor who falsely claimed Covid shots were ineffective and deadly appointed head of CDC vaccine oversight
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory group has long had a work group in place to ...
Viewpoint: Profiling Dr. David Geier, the anti-vax quack who is guiding RFK, Jr.’s vaccine policy
By Jessica SteierGraphics by Sara Chodosh and Taylor Maggiacomo Dr. Steier is a public health scientist who specializes in science ...
Appeal to Nature Fallacy: Understanding soaring chemophobia from the ideological left and right
Chemophobia is complicated, but, in short, it’s a distrust or fear of chemicals and appears in many of aspects of ...
Can bacteria replace synthetic fertilizer?
Synthetic fertilizer is a modern wonder, helping to feed billions of people, but it’s not without its costs. Fertilizer runoff ...
Viewpoint: What the media and policymakers miss about containing agricultural pests—Exaggerating risk and underestimating benefits
The debate on the extent and necessity of regulating the use of plant protection products essentially concerns an objective assessment ...
Viewpoint: Appeal to Nature Fallacy: How MAHA is stoking chemophobia
Chemophobia was born from the “appeal to nature fallacy,” said [Andrea] Love, which is “the false belief that natural substances ...
GLP spaces on X: Do Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs promote ‘fat phobia’ as some fat activists claim?
Obesity may have finally found its match in Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs that are helping many millions of people ...
