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.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Viewpoint: Neonicotinoid use on field crops should be reined in
Planting season for corn and soybeans across the U.S. corn belt is drawing to a close. As they plant, farmers are participating ...
Bumblebees do better in cities than on farms, study finds
Cities are filled with buildings, people and concrete — usually not seen as the ideal place for anything wild but ...
17 million farmers around the world grew GMO crops in 2017, industry studies show
[T]he International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) and PG Economics, Ltd. released new studies highlighting the continued ...
Viewpoint: David Zaruk’s defense of science, glyphosate make him a ‘true farming hero’
Compared with some of history’s more notable rivalries – Wellington and Napoleon, Gladstone and Disraeli, Ali and Frazier – a ...
‘Environmental progress without organic’: Rachel Carson’s testy relationship with the organic food and farming movement
Rachel Carson, who launched the modern environmental movement with her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” was a highly private person. But ...
Viewpoint: How EU can return to evidence-based policy-making
The word ‘evidence’ implies objectivity based on facts and science. But the reality reveals a wide gap between theory and ...
Viewpoint: Why farmers should pay attention to glyphosate-cancer lawsuits
The San Fransisco Superior Court will soon hear testimony from a man dying of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma who claims Roundup (glyphosate) ...
European scrutiny puts pressure on farmers to limit glyphosate use
The glyphosate you use on the farm hasn’t changed — but public attitudes, at least in some quarters, have radically ...
Viewpoint: How Scotts and Monsanto got off the hook for Oregon GMO bentgrass mishap
In the failing light of an unusually warm January day, Jerry Erstrom and I race along a dirt track behind ...
EU Green Parties: Crops produced with New Breeding Techniques are ‘new GMOs’ that perpetuate ‘industrial agriculture’
The EU Court of Justice will soon publish its ruling concerning the legal statute of a group of biotechnologies, which have ...
Global abstention from pesticides will lead to food shortages, Syngenta says
The world is likely to face food shortages within 20 years if pesticides and genetically modified crops are shunned, according ...
Why it’s OK to change your mind, from a former anti-GMO activist
Once upon a time, shortly after the age of bloodletting, people thought that facts could change minds. It may seem ...
Facing accusations that its cancer designations are politicized, WHO’s IARC may lose US funding
Members of the House Appropriations Committee are threatening to withhold funding for the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), whose ...
GMO crops so efficient at killing pests, adjacent non-GMO crops are also protected
One of the great purported boons of GMOs is that they allow farmers to use fewer pesticides, some of which are ...
Viewpoint: Weeds appear to be winning ever-evolving war against herbicide resistant crops
For farmers, protecting fields from pests and plagues is a constant battle fought on multiple fronts. Many insects have a ...
Viewpoint: US EPA rebuffs activist lobbying, finds neonicotinoids not key driver of bee health problems
In The Neonic Ban: A Scientific Fraud Becomes Enshrined In EU Regulatory Law, I described the many elements of corruption that ...
After Bayer-Monsanto merger, will ‘big ag’ invest in big data?
The merger has been a laboured one: in order to please regulators, Bayer had to sell its seed and herbicide ...
Viewpoint: Pesticide bans and restrictions can have unwanted side-effects
Glyphosate, neonicotinoids, drinking water initiative – renouncing pesticides is currently the subject of fierce discussion. For while on the one ...
California agency rejects Prop 65, sets aside ruling requiring that coffee carry a cancer warning
On [June 15th], the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) proposed a regulation that would exempt coffee from requiring ...
Viewpoint: EU’s neonicotinoid ban is a ‘scientific fraud’ and won’t protect bees
Five years after the European Union imposed a temporary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, an “experts committee” of the member states ...
First plaintiff, nearing death, goes to court in case claiming Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup causes cancer
On bad days, Dewayne Johnson is too crippled to speak. Lesions often cover as much as 80% of his body ...
Viewpoint: New director of International Agency for Research on Cancer, under fire for promoting cancer fears, likely to maintain status quo
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization subsidiary mired in controversy, picked Dr. Elisabete Weiderpass ...
Viewpoint: Questioning Nature’s publication of anti-glyphosate letter
On March 21, 2018, Nature published a letter by French journalists Stéphane Foucart and Stéphane Horel, “Risks associated with glyphosate ...
Cell free proteins? Unraveling the mysteries of the plant circadian clock
The basic unit of life is the cell; tiny, fatty, self-replicating bubbles that have adapted to fill almost every environment ...
Viewpoint: How the organic industry spreads ‘fake science’
This fact sheet describes the contents of an organic industry confidential public relations plan to spread fake science in its ...
Green revolution: Indian farmers advocate for legalization of GMO mustard, biotech crops
A new green revolution is in the making. Farmers in India are now using social media to promote and advocate ...
Viewpoint: Indian anti-GMO activist Vandana Shiva ‘spreads misinformation and fear’ about conventional agriculture
I attended a presentation given by Vandana Shiva, a well-known anti-GMO activist, at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. It was definitely an ...
