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: 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 ...
How to outwit weeds: Genetically engineered cotton that feeds on phosphite, an alternative, sustainable fertilizer
Wily weeds can develop resistance to herbicides, allowing them to compete with genetically modified crops designed to tolerate weed-killing chemicals ...
‘Laser weeding’: Can robots partially replace farm tractors, harvesters and even herbicides like glyphosate?
Professor Simon Blackmore, head of robotic agriculture at the UK's National Centre for Precision Farming at Harper Adams University in ...
‘Super bacteria’ could boost crop yields and reduce nitrogen pollution
Bioscientist Dr. Ted Cocking, from the Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation in the UK, was the first to unlock the ...
Why glyphosate and herbicide-tolerant GMO seeds aren’t threats to bees
Glyphosate is a herbicide, in other words, it is toxic to plants. Its target enzyme is not found in insects ...
Federal judge rules California can’t label glyphosate herbicide as cancer-causing
California cannot require companies to place warning labels on glyphosate products, a federal judge affirmed in a ruling issued Tuesday [June 12] ...
Viewpoint: Post-Brexit UK can help farmers by giving them access to GMO crops
With timeframes beginning to take shape for the Agriculture Bill and Environment Act, Michael Gove is presented with a number ...
Neonicotinoid insecticides negatively impact bumblebee queen health, lab study finds
In a study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers at the University of California, Riverside found that ...
Can new IARC director bridge gap between controversial cancer agency and rest of scientific community?
A look at IARC’s recent record suggests that skepticism is in order ...
Naturally decaffeinated CRISPR coffee and disease-resistant bananas? Tropic Biosciences takes big step towards commercializing both
In a lab at a U.K. research park, researchers from a startup called Tropic Biosciences are using CRISPR to create a better ...
Debunking the myth that India is awash in pesticides
India has made rapid progress in the field of agriculture in recent years. Unfortunately, this largely remains unknown and uncelebrated ...
Why isn’t India’s government arresting farmers using unapproved herbicide-tolerant GMO cotton seeds?
Many Indian farmers are openly sowing an unapproved variety of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds developed by Monsanto, as the ...
Science disproves Seralini GMO rat tumor study—but his findings were always an outlier
Gilles-Éric Séralini is a French researcher who came to fame from publishing a study in 2012 claiming that herbicide-tolerant GMO corn, with ...
SexyPlant: Can GMO crops that produce insect sex pheromones replace pesticides?
“Sexy plants” are on the way to replacing many harmful pesticides, scientists say, by producing the sex pheromones of insects ...
Viewpoint: Divide between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ chemicals is meaningless
Since pesticides and herbicides are routinely in the news, lately because of the "Glyphosate Wars," (2) I thought it might be interesting to ...
EU food safety chief: Reelection—not reality—motivated Europe’s anti-glyphosate politicians
Some politicians spoke “loudly” against glyphosate, the world’s most commonly used weedkiller, before their elections but came back to reality ...
Natural insecticide from tobacco plants could fend off crop pests without killing them
Although it's associated with nasty cigarettes, the tobacco plant is also a potential source of vaccines, biofuel and antibiotics. Now, a chemical from the ...
Canada to decide on neonicotinoid restrictions this summer
The fate of two neonicotinoid seed treatments, applied to almost all of the canola and corn seeds in Canada and ...
