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.
40 years of data show Bt corn significantly reduces pests, spraying and crop damage, including in nearby non-GMO fields
University of Maryland researchers have pulled together forty years of data to quantify the effects of Bt field corn, a ...
Bad weather, habitat destruction and pesticides are main threats to monarch butterflies
The number of monarch butterflies that overwintered in forests in Mexico fell for a second straight year, experts say. Monday's ...
Viewpoint: Congress should reign in IARC cancer agency’s ‘corruption, distortion and fraud’
In November 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology sent the UN’s International Agency for ...
Study of 54,000 farmers finding no glyphosate-cancer link could sink Monsanto lawsuit
More than 300 lawsuits have been filed on behalf of farmers and others who said that Monsanto's popular weed killer, Roundup, gave them ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR crops poised to help global food insecurity and limit farming’s environmental impact
Increased crop productivity, including the use of genetically modified and other forms of biotechnology crops, leads to more affordable food ...
Viewpoint: Field studies suggest bee health issues not linked to neonicotinoid insecticides
According to the European Union Food Safety Authority, most uses of neonicotinoids represent a risk to wild bees and honeybees ...
Facing potato blight crisis, Bangladesh partners with American universities, Simplot to develop disease-resistant GE variety
Bangladesh’s agriculture sector is mainly comprised of smallholder farmers ... who farm on plots smaller than 1.5 acres. Managing harvest ...
Will Australia ban neonicotinoid insecticides despite no evidence of bee declines on the continent?
European farmers are facing a total ban on a common group of pesticides after a report confirms they harm bees, ...
German coalition could lead to eventual ban of glyphosate in Europe despite ‘no harm’ findings
Perhaps as a sign of how unstable Germany’s political landscape has become, a weed killer has become an unlikely bargaining ...
Greece approves glyphosate herbicide for 5 years, reversing prior position supporting rejection by EU
The Greek ministry of agriculture officially approved on Tuesday (6 March) the re-authorisation of the world’s most commonly used weedkiller, ...
Risk In Perspective: Hazard and Risk Are Critically Different Things
The difference between hazard and risk is a critical distinction. Hazard and risk describe two different but related concepts. The ...
Herbicides make sweet corn sweeter and boost crop’s beneficial mineral levels, study finds
New work shows [that] changes in treated crops are substantial enough to change both their nutritional value and flavour. [The ...
Viewpoint: While wildlife habitat loss is a real problem, organic farming is not the solution
A recent article in the Independent is, in my opinion, a good example of how ideology can overwhelm evidence and ...
Lawsuits against Monsanto alleging glyphosate-cancer connection face court scrutiny
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria will spend a week hearing from experts to help decide whether there is valid scientific ...
Lifting Sri Lanka’s glyphosate herbicide ban welcomed by tea industry
Editor's note: The following is part of an editorial by The Island, a daily English-language newspaper in Sri Lanka The reported ...
Viewpoint: US funding for IARC cancer agency should be frozen until changes are made
Question: When is a carcinogen not necessarily a carcinogen? Answer: When the labelling is done by the World Health Organization’s ...
European farm groups defend neonicotinoids as environmental NGOs calls for total ban to protect bees
[Editor's note: On Feb. 28, the European Food Safety Authority issued a report concluding that neonicotinoid insecticides pose risks to ...
‘Living paints’: GMO bacteria could be used to make biodegradable paints
Now here's a bright idea. Researchers in Europe have developed a technique for growing genetically modified bacteria that can be used as ...
On India’s black market, herbicide-tolerant GMO cotton seeds sell for 1.7 times what Monsanto charged
[W]hile the government wanted to keep prices low for Indian farmers, as [the South Asia Biotechnology Centre] points out, the ...
‘The taste of pesticides in wines’: Dissecting Gilles-Eric Seralini’s latest ethically and scientifically questionable study
The notorious Gilles-Eric Seralini published a paper recently called “The Taste of Pesticides in Wines.” As a part of the ...
Viewpoint: Why environmentalists should support GMO crops
[G]enetic modification increases corn yields, by a lot. This is not surprising: pests account for a loss of almost one-third ...
Neonicotinoid insecticides pose risks to wild bees and honeybees, European Food Safety Authority says
The world’s most widely used insecticides pose a serious danger to both honeybees and wild bees, according to a major ...
Viewpoint: Bans on neonicotinoid insecticides may not actually help bees
Public pressure is growing in Australia to ban the sale of pesticides called neonicotinoids because of their harmful effects on bees. The ...
Federal judge halts California’s plan to require cancer warning label on glyphosate products
A federal judge on Monday halted California’s plan to require Monsanto to place warning labels on its Roundup products, saying scientists haven’t ...
Video: How GMO cotton helps farmers save fuel and water—and reduces pesticide use
When I think of cotton, I think of the southern United States. Australia may not come to mind, but they ...
Viewpoint: How ‘Big Food’ co-opted the organic movement
I was recently dispatched to a Target to buy some Goldfish, which was a more daunting task than you might ...
Canadian beekeepers sue Bayer and Syngenta, blame neonicotinoid manufacturers for bee deaths
A Quebec class-action lawsuit against two producers of neonicotinoids — commonly used insecticides that have been linked to a declining population of honeybees — ...
