Pesticides
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</font><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</span></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">see 2 bak</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>this refers to all agricultural chemicals, including herbicides and fertililizers</b></span></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>see also Monsanto, agribiz, atrazine, syngenta, GMOnsanto, neo-nics, toxins</b></span></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>promoted to primary b/c toxin emblematic of damage, Carson godmother, syngenta evil, 6/15 could be bought my monsanto</b></span></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>capt 915</b></span></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <b>"Big 6" pesticide and GMO corporations</b> are <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BASF" title="BASF" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">BASF</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bayer" title="Bayer" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Bayer</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dupont" class="mw-redirect" title="Dupont" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Dupont</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dow_Chemical_Company" title="Dow Chemical Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Dow Chemical Company</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto" title="Monsanto" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Monsanto</a>, and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Syngenta" title="Syngenta" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Syngenta</a>. They are so called because they dominate the agricultural input market -- that is, they own the world’s seed, pesticide and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Biotechnology" title="Biotechnology" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">biotechnology</a> industries.<sup id="cite_ref-PANNAcartel_1-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=%22Big_6%22_Pesticide_and_GMO_Corporations#cite_note-PANNAcartel-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=%22Big_6%22_Pesticide_and_GMO_Corporations#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[2]</a></sup></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=United_Nations" title="United Nations" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">United Nations</a> Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), corporate concentration of the agricultural input market "has far-reaching implications for global food security, as the privatization and patenting of agricultural innovation (gene traits, transformation technologies and seed germplasm) has been supplanting traditional agricultural understandings of seed, farmers' rights, and breeders' rights."<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=%22Big_6%22_Pesticide_and_GMO_Corporations#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[3]</a></sup></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For more information, see the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA) resource <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.panna.org/issues/pesticides-profit/chemical-cartel" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 187); background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 width=%2212%22 height=%2212%22%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%23fff%22 stroke=%22%2336c%22 d=%22M1.5 4.518h5.982V10.5H1.5z%22/%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%2336c%22 d=%22M5.765 1H11v5.39L9.427 7.937l-1.31-1.31L5.393 9.35l-2.69-2.688 2.81-2.808L4.2 2.544z%22/%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%23fff%22 d=%22M9.995 2.004l.022 4.885L8.2 5.07 5.32 7.95 4.09 6.723l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z%22/%3E %3C/svg%3E"); padding-right: 13px;">here</a>.</p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p class="print-title"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/highly-hazardous-pesticides-investigation-2645202101.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.ecowatch.com/highly-hazardous-pesticides-investigation-2645202101.html</font></a></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">P<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">oor people in developing countries are far more likely to suffer from exposure to</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">pesticides</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">classified as having high hazard to human health or the environment, according to new data that</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Unearthed analyzed</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2645202101" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The analysis shows that the world's top five pesticide makers are making billions, accounting for more than 36 percent of their income, from chemicals that are proven to hazards to humans and the environment and are contributing to the precipitous demise of bee populations, as Unearthed reported.</font></p><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-basename="particle-1" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/highly-hazardous-pesticides-investigation-2645202101.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem1"><p /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers found that the sale of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), disproportionately occurred in poorer nations, which often have fewer regulations than industrialized nations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">according to The Guardian</a>. In India, for example, sales of HHPs were nearly 60 percent, while in the UK it was just 11 percent.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report from the investigative team at Unearthed focused on the practices of Bayer, BASF, Corteva (formerly Dow and DuPont), FMC and Syngenta, which are continuing to sell HHPs like neonicotinoids and glufosinate that have been banned in other parts of the world, according to the produce industry publication <a href="http://www.fruitnet.com/fpj/article/180959/pesticide-firms-profit-off-hazardous-products-says-report" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Fresh Produce Journal</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Unearthed</a> dove into data collected by Phillips McDougall, the leading agribusiness analysts, from buyer surveys that concentrated on the best sellers in the top 43 pesticide buying countries, as The Guardian reported.</font></p><p /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-basename="particle-2" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/highly-hazardous-pesticides-investigation-2645202101.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" data-id="2" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem2"><p /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While regulations have stopped the sale of certain pesticides in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, it has hardly slowed down chemical companies, which sold $4.8 billion worth of products containing HHPs in 2018, as <span style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Guardian reported</span>. guk] Bayer called the analysis "misleading" but did not offer proof of that assessment.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the investigation focused on just 43 countries, it covered less than half of the companies' global sales. That suggests that the companies actually made billions more from pesticides that regulatory agencies have said pose hazards like acute poisoning or chronic illness in people, or high toxicity to bees and other wildlife, <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">according to Unearthed</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The investigation found that pesticide manufacturers sold the majority of its highly hazardous pesticide in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India, where experts say the risks posed by using these chemicals are greatest, according to Unearthed. The biggest market for HHPs were for corn and soya crops.</font></p><p /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-basename="particle-3" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/highly-hazardous-pesticides-investigation-2645202101.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem3"><p /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About a quarter of sales were from products known to be human carcinogens or dangerous to reproductive health. Another 10 percent were toxic to bees. An additional 4 percent of chemicals sold are acutely toxic to humans. Every year, nearly 200,000 suicides are linked to pesticide poisoning, almost entirely in developing countries, according to The Guardian.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This investigation shows that there is a huge disconnect between what those companies are saying in the international policy arena and what they are actually doing," Meriel Watts, a senior science and policy advisor to the Pesticide Action Network, said to Unearthed.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baskut Tuncak, the United Nations' <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/ToxicWastes/Pages/BaskutTuncak.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">special rapporteur on toxic substances</a> and human rights, told <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Unearthed</a>, "There is nothing sustainable about the widespread use of highly hazardous pesticides for agriculture."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Whether they poison workers, extinguish biodiversity, persist in the environment, or accumulate in a mother's breast milk, these are unsustainable, cannot be used safely, and should have been phased out of use long ago," Tuncak said.</font></p><p /></div><div class="post-pager js-listicle-pager" data-listicle-style="" data-async_load_parameters="platform=desktop&display_ads=1&settings=%7B%22enter_url%22%3A+false%2C+%22no_post_section%22%3A+false%2C+%22ads_breaks%22%3A+null%2C+%22prevent_last_break_repetition%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_numeration%22%3A+false%2C+%22allow_url_change%22%3A+true%2C+%22ads_order%22%3A+%5B%5D%2C+%22pagination_order%22%3A+%5B%5D%2C+%22list_breaks%22%3A+null%2C+%22reorder_voting%22%3A+false%2C+%22cooldown_in_seconds%22%3A+null%2C+%22source%22%3A+%22post_listicle_settings%22%2C+%22next_post_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22up_down_voting%22%3A+false%2C+%22show_columns_on_mobile%22%3A+false%2C+%22numeration_sort%22%3A+-1%2C+%22allow_url_update%22%3A+true%2C+%22use_pagination%22%3A+false%2C+%22body_text_above%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_ads%22%3A+false%2C+%22items_as_posts%22%3A+false%2C+%22multiple_answers%22%3A+false%2C+%22no_redirect%22%3A+false%2C+%22is_guest_voting_allowed%22%3A+true%2C+%22layout_type%22%3A+1%7D" style="display: table; 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background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">pesticides</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/toxics" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">toxics</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">bees</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">insects</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agribusiness" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">agribusiness</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/india" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">india</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/brazil" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">brazil</a></font></div><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ew 220</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="widget__headline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/andean-condor-2645030016.html" aria-label="Pesticides Are Killing off the Andean Condor">
Pesticides Are Killing off the Andean Condor
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="post-tags-primary-link" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticides</a></font></div>
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</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/us-pesticide-usage-bans-2638789192.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/us-pesticide-usage-bans-2638789192.html</a></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump epa fail</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/a-total-disgrace-outrage-as-trump-epa-says-it-wont-ban-pesticide-linked-to-brain-damage-in-children">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/a-total-disgrace-outrage-as-trump-epa-says-it-wont-ban-pesticide-linked-to-brain-damage-in-children</a></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>' A total disgrace’: Outrage as Trump EPA says it won’t ban pesticide linked to brain damage in children</b></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>July 19, 2019</font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a move environmentalists denounced as yet another case of the Trump administration putting industry profits over public health, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that it will not ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage in children.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“By allowing chlorpyrifos to stay in our fruits and vegetables, Trump’s EPA is breaking the law and neglecting the overwhelming scientific evidence that this pesticide harms children’s brains,” Patti Goldman, attorney with Earthjustice said in a statement. “It is a tragedy that this administration sides with corporations instead of children’s health.”</font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA chief Andrew Wheeler’s decision to reject a petition by environmental groups calling for a ban on the neurotoxic chemical ignores the assessments of his agency’s own scientists, said Tiffany Finck-Haynes, pesticides and pollinators program manager for Friends of the Earth.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The EPA’s refusal to ban chlorpyrifos ignores decades of science showing that this pesticide has irrevocable effects on human health and the environment,” said Finck-Haynes. “The EPA is endangering the lives of children to protect pesticide industry profits.”</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Friends of the Earth</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@foe_us</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Today Trump's @EPA announced that it will not #BanChlorpyrifos — a brain-damaging pesticide that EPA's own scientists have deemed unsafe at any level.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The EPA is endangering the lives of children to protect pesticide industry profits."https://foe.org/news/trumps-epa-continues-delay-federal-ban-brain-damaging-pesticide-chlorpyrifos-leaving-states-take-action/ …</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s EPA continues to delay federal ban on the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos, leaving...</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will not ban the neurotoxic, brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos<b>. Last summer, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals...</b></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">foe.org</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Chlorpyrifos has been banned for household use since 2000, but the pesticide is still used by farmers on “more than 50 fruit, nut, cereal, and vegetable crops,” according to the New York Times.</b></font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In 2016,” the Times reported, “more than 640,000 acres were treated with chlorpyrifos in California alone.”</font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Obama administration in 2015 proposed banning use of the pesticide on food crops, but former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt authorized its continued use in 2017.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is a total disgrace,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) tweeted in response to the EPA’s decision on Thursday.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finck-Haynes of<b> Friends of the Earth </b>said that as the federal government continues to work on behalf of chemical interests, states must take immediate action to protect the public and the environment.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“While the federal government refuses to act, we urge states to step in, ban chlorpyrifos, and demonstrate that they will safeguard public health and the environment,” said Finck-Haynes. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We call on [New York] Governor [Andrew] Cuomo to sign the chlorpyrifos ban bill sitting on his desk and protect New Yorkers from this toxic pesticide.”</span></font></p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a statement on Thursday, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) highlighted the Trump administration’s ties to Dow Chemical, the largest producer of chlorpyrifos in the United States.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The relationship between President Trump and Dow Chemical… has been called into question,” the group said. “Among other things, the chemical manufacturing giant <b>reportedly donated $1 million for Trump’s inauguration, and its CEO previously played a chief advisory role to the president, heading up his now defunct American Manufacturing Council.”</b></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Erik Olson, senior director of health and food at <b>NRDC, </b>said the effort to achieve a ban on chlorpyrifos will continue.</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Until EPA gets this stuff out of our fields and off our food,” said Olson, “this fight is not over.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twit</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-pesticides-2636194015.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-pesticides-2636194015.html</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JAIR BOLSONARO</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brazil's Bolsonaro Green-Lights 150+ Pesticides This Year</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Mongabay May 03 POLITICS</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Isac Nóbrega / PR / Flickr</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Sue Branford and Thais Borges</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the ruralist lobby now in control of key sectors of the federal government, Brazil is rapidly approving new pesticides for use, some of which critics say are either unnecessary or excessively toxic. During the first 100 days of the <b>Jair Bolsonaro administration, the Agriculture Ministry authorized the registration of 152 pesticides, putting Brazil on course to authorize more pesticides this year than in any previous year. Brazil is already the world's largest user of pesticides.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The number of pesticides authorized each year has risen rapidly, from 139 in 2015 under the Dilma Rousseff administration, to 450 in 2018 under the Michel Temer government (see graph). An even higher number is expected to enter the Brazilian market this year, as the Agriculture Ministry considers registration of roughly another 1,300 pesticides. Most of these requests are coming from foreign multinational companies, mainly based in the U.S., Germany and China, which is increasingly becoming an important supplier.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IBAMA / Mongabay]</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An employee from Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources surveys a heap of emptied pesticide containers on a farm.]</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Pro-Pesticide Government vs. Environmentalists</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Despite the rapid rise in authorizations, Bolsonaro's agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, said "there is no general liberation" of new pesticide registrations.</b>According to her ministry, the products will merely give farmers a greater choice of existing pesticides, and access to new chemicals and there is no reason to be concerned: "The use [of pesticides] is completely safe, provided they are applied as instructed, within a context of good farming practice and with the use of individual protective equipment," said the government.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Events within Brazil seem to deny the truth of Cristina's claims. Brazil has a higher per capita consumption of pesticides than any other country in the world — 7.3 liters per year per person — and it is already facing a serious problem with pesticide intoxication.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Guilherme Franco Netto, an Environment, Health and Sustainability Specialist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, one of the world's top public health research institutions, about 100,000 cases of intoxication are recorded in Brazil each year.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> According to Alan Tygel, from the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and for Life, this figure seriously underestimates the real situation, as many rural workers fail to report pesticide intoxications.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Brazil: Pesticide Poisonings in Rural Areas</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In July 2018, the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, published a report documenting acute intoxication at seven locations in Brazil, including indigenous communities, schools and quilombolas — communities of runaway slave descendants.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Pesticides sprayed in large plantations intoxicate children in schoolrooms in many parts of Brazil," said Richard Pearshouse, assistant director of the environmental and human rights division of Human Rights Watch. But the report found that many local inhabitants were too frightened to speak out.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In five of the seven impacted communities, people said they were afraid of suffering reprisals if they complained. In 2010 a rural farmer was shot dead after putting pressure on local government to forbid aerial spraying of pesticides — a common application practice in Brazil, even though it allows wind-carried toxic sprays to settle far from crops in surrounding communities and natural areas.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New Formulations Raise Alarms</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the requests given the go-ahead this year are for new formulations of already authorized pesticides."Once the initial manufacturer loses its patent, other companies start requesting registration so they can use the [same] active ingredients to produce new agricultural products," said Murilo Souza, from the State University of Goiás.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonardo Melgarejo, vice-president of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology, believes that this practice is harmful as it will inevitably lead to a big increase in consumption nationwide. "We are approving several variations of the same pesticide," he said. "We're heading for a situation in which farmers will be able to 'self-medicate,' with two pesticide shops on every block." Little research has been done to see how hundreds of various pesticides might interact to become more damaging.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The torrent of new approvals is also making it easier for Brazil's farmers to gain access to toxic pesticides with which the global community has serious concern. One such case is that of 2,4-D, an active ingredient in controversial defoliant Agent Orange, used by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and whose use is increasingly being controlled in other countries, after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it in 2015 as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The latest wave of Agriculture Ministry authorizations seen on 10 April, gave the go-ahead to 31 products via an official federal decree — Act 24 — including three new formulations of 2,4-D requested by multinational pesticide makers and distributors. One request came from the Chinese company, Rainbow Defensivos Agrícolas, while the other two were initiated by Dow AgroSciences for formulations to be manufactured in South Africa and exported to Brazil.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These new Brazilian authorizations took place at a time when the Rio Grande do Sul Public Ministry, a group of independent public litigators, was carrying out an investigation into an allegation made by the Brazilian Wine Institute that last year the state lost almost a third of its grape harvest as a result of the aerial spraying of pesticides containing 2,4-D. Farmers spray this pesticide before they sow soy — also a time when grape, apple and olive trees are flowering, and when the spray can easily drift over neighboring farms.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The data from our survey [that showed a loss of almost a third of the grape harvest] is a conservative figure, as it relied only on information spontaneously offered by farmers," said Helio Marchioro of Brazilian Wine Institute. In fact, grape farmers themselves are calling for a 2,4-D ban, even as the Bolsonaro administration approves new <b>2,4-D</b> formulations.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Controversial Pesticides Approved for First Time in Brazil</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several of the pesticides authorized this year will be entirely new to Brazil. Some have already been classified by Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency as "extremely toxic." These include: mancozeb, a broad-spectrum fungicide used in agriculture and horticulture; the fungicide fluazinam; and the insecticide chlorpyrifos. In 2018 the Pest Management Regulatory Agency banned the use of mancozeb in Canada, except for foliar use on potatoes, due to "unacceptable risks to human health." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of chlorpyrifos in 2018 after its use had been associated with development disabilities in children.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One particularly controversial newly approved chemical is sulfoxaflor. This pesticide was one of several believed to have caused an outbreak in Brazil of colony collapse disorder — the catastrophic sudden disappearance of worker bees from a bee colony, leading to the death of hives. According to a survey carried out by Agência Pública and Repórter Brasil, half a billion bees were found dead in four Brazilian states in the first quarter of 2019 — a staggeringly large die off posing a threat to the pollination of fruits and vegetables and to native vegetation.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But at a press conference on April 9, Agriculture Minister Cristina seemed unaware that Brazil has already authorized sulfoxaflor. "The problem with the bees is that a product called sulfoxaflor was used. This [toxin] is not registered in Brazil," she said. "It probably entered Brazil illegally and is being used incorrectly and thus caused the death of the bees." In fact, sulfoxaflor was authorized at the end of last year by the Temer administration, though the official decree was only issued in January of this year under the Bolsonaro government.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sulfoxaflor is classified by Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency as "averagely toxic," but this evaluation is challenged abroad. Dow Chemical initially developed sulfoxaflor as a safer alternative to neonicotinoids, known to be harmful to bees. It was initially approved by the US EPA in 2013, a decision reversed in 2015 when studies found that sulfoxaflor was also dangerous to bees. Today sulfoxaflor can still be used in the U.S., but only in restricted circumstances.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pesticide <b>Deregulation</b> in the Works</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Environmental activist Alan Tygel believes that the rapid rise in the number of pesticide authorizations is directly linked to the growing power of the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress. This lobby, he said, made its support for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 dependent on government backing for pro-agribusiness measures.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> "From then on, the counterweight that came from progressive sectors, from family farming and from agroecology, was lost, and today the ruralist agenda faces fewer obstacles in its drive to have more pesticides approved and to push through more permissive laws," Tygel said. The Bolsonaro presidential campaign greatly benefited from ruralist support, and it greatly helped sweep the former Army captain and legislator to victory last October.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next goal of the ruralist agenda — more permissive laws — may well get a major boost this year with congressional approval of PL 6299/2002, dubbed as the "poison package" by critics. The legislation, which would greatly deregulate pesticides, was endorsed by a Chamber of Deputies commission in June 2018 and it now awaits plenary debate. The Temer government justified the bill, presented to Congress by then Agriculture Minister and dedicated ruralist, Blairo Maggi, claiming that the country desperately needed to simplify the complicated process of getting new pesticides authorized in order to help farmers.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Castro Moreira, president of the prestigious Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science, representing more than 100 scientific societies, disagreed strongly. He said at the time that the bill, "could have very serious consequences for the health of the Brazilian population and the environment … Its approval would be a backward step, because it follows the logic of mechanized agriculture, with high investments in fertilizers and pesticides, which is an outmoded way of thinking, dating from the end of the Second World War."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Current Agriculture Minister Cristina is a strong proponent of PL 6299/2002, but there is bound to be opposition to the bill's approval, though it will likely be difficult for critics to block the measure. The ruralists have never had a stronger grip on both the legislative and executive branches, and they seem determined to press their agribusiness agenda.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As President Bolsonaro ended his first 100 days in office, his popularity was slipping fast, with 30 percent of the population already assessing his administration as "very bad" and the markets believing the government is becoming unstable. However, that very perception of growing uncertainty seems to have only caused the ruralists to move forward with greater urgency. Meanwhile, conservationists and food experts continue to warn of the national and global environmental and health repercussions of Brazil's deregulated pesticide use — permissiveness likely to soon outstrip that seen among other major agricultural nations.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reposted with permission from our media associate Mongabay.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times reports that the two pesticides were found to be such a threat that they “jeopardized the continued existence” of not just a few species, but over 1,200 species, ranging from tiny fish to colorful birds to kit foxes. The pesticides are a potent cocktail for disaster, and the Fish and Wildlife Service spent years putting together an airtight case that the two had to be banned to avoid massive ecological disaster. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The findings were set to become public at the end of 2017. But then … they didn’t. Instead, Donald Trump inserted industry lobbyist David Bernhardt as deputy secretary of the interior. Bernhardt blocked the release of the information, announced new rules narrowing the means by which Fish and Wildlife could evaluate the data, and sent the whole study back to square one—not just wiping out years of work, but putting hundreds of species and whole ecosystems at risk of collapse.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For his work in assisting the pesticide industry, Bernhardt is now on track for a promotion. He is Trump’s new nominee to be the next secretary of the interior, and his confirmation hearing is coming up on Thursday. Bernhardt would replace Ryan Zinke, who abruptly left his position after a series of scandals. It may not seem possible, but Bernhardt is worse. As the Natural Resources Defense Council explains, this isn’t Bernhardt’s first go-round in Washington. He’s a top predator in the lobbyist swamp, having spent more than 20 years on every aspect of ruining public lands from opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee to oil drilling, to putting snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And it will come as absolutely no surprise that Dow, the company behind chlorpyrifos, donated $1 million to Trump’s shady inaugural committee.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Trump’s crew took over, Dow has been a regular visitor at both the EPA and the Interior Department. The changes in the way pesticides are being treated that Bernhardt put in place didn’t originate with Bernhardt. They are exactly what Dow requested.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dow and other pesticide manufacturers were aware of the study when Trump came into office. They followed up their fat contributions with letters to Zinke at Interior, Scott Pruitt at EPA, and Wilbur Ross at Commerce, asking all of them to “set aside” the findings. Zinke was still interior secretary when the regulations were turned back, but it was Bernhardt who put his name to the policy changes and tossed a study that would have dealt with a massive ecological threat that will now continue for years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since taking office, Trump has made hundreds of vague and unsupported statements about how America’s water was “cleaner than ever” and how the country had “moved to the top of the charts” on the environment. Trump continues to produce these nonsensical statements, pulled from the so-so-clean streams of his nether regions, even as he lifts bans on pollution from fracking, allows mines to fill streams and rivers with waste, and leaves a rapidly ticking time bomb of pesticides in place.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Insect Apocalypse Is Here</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-house-brain-damaging-pesticides-2613568873.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-house-brain-damaging-pesticides-2613568873.html</a></font></p><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump White House Pushes to Let Minors Spray Brain-Damaging Pesticides on Farms</font></h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font></p><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2613568873" data-authors="Environmental Working Group" data-headline="Trump White House Pushes to Let Minors Spray Brain-Damaging Pesticides on Farms" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The White House's <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">just-released list</a> of planned environmental and public health rollbacks includes letting high-school-age kids spray brain-damaging pesticides on commercial farms.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plan would drop the age of workers permitted to spray <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-10/documents/rup-report-oct2017.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">restricted-use pesticides</a> on crops from 18 to 16. Minors would be allowed to apply dangerous chemicals such as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chlorpyrifos" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chlorpyrifos</a>, which U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists say can cause brain damage in children even in small doses.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The move, which would take effect <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201810&RIN=2070-AK37" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">next September</a>, was first announced last year by Scott Pruitt, the former head of the EPA, who was forced in July to resign after a string of ethical scandals. In one of the first acts of the Trump administration, Pruitt aborted a scheduled ban of chlorpyrifos just weeks after meeting with the CEO of Dow, chlorpyrifos's manufacturer.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pruitt's reversal of the ban was recently overturned by a federal appeals court. Under acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA is fighting the court's order to ban the pesticide.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The minimum age rules were enacted by the Obama administration to protect minors who work on farms. Many of these teenagers are migrant workers who speak little English, making it harder to understand directions on how to apply pesticides safely. The rules were championed by physicians and farmworker-rights advocates, who led a multi-year effort to improve protections for farmworkers.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Letting younger teenagers handle dangerous pesticides fits perfectly with the Trump administration's <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/10/trump-s-war-children-s-health-escalates-wheeler-s-epa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">war on children's health protection</a>," said EWG President Ken Cook. "There are other farm jobs they could do that don't involve strapping containers of dangerous chemicals on their backs that they will inhale and ingest. But this administration will let unscrupulous farm bosses risk these kids' health."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Maybe the president should pick up a spray nozzle for a day and see what it's like walking through a plume of pesticide fumes," said Cook. "But the closest he gets to a farm is flying over them on the way to his golf resorts and MAGA rallies."</font></p><div class="around-the-web"><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/chlorpyrifos-ban-hawaii-2578016885.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Hawaii Bans Use of Toxic Pesticide Chlorpyrifos ›</a></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-administration-chlorpyrifos-2607820657.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Trump Administration Asks Court to Re-Hear Case That Banned ... ›</a></font></li></ul></div></div></div><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/chlorpyrifos-epa-ban-2594491287.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/chlorpyrifos-epa-ban-2594491287.html</a></font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p class="print-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">C<span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">ourt Rebukes EPA, Orders Ban on Pesticide That Harms Kids’ Brains</span></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2594491287" data-authors="Environmental Working Group" data-headline="Court Rebukes EPA, Orders Ban on Pesticide That Harms Kids’ Brains" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font><div class="body-description"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In <a href="http://src.bna.com/A2j" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a scathing opinion</a>, a federal court on Thursday ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) to ban <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chlorpyrifos" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chlorpyrifos</a>, a toxic <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pesticide</a> linked to brain damage in children.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p>The ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nullified the <a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/epa-chief-scraps-scheduled-ban-pesticide-harms-kids-brains#.W2xq5C-ZNBw" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">decision</a> last year by then-EPA Administrator <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Pruitt</a> to cancel the agency's proposal to ban chlorpyrifos—an insecticide that in small doses can harm children's brains and nervous systems—from use on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/food/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">food</a> crops.</p><p>Pruitt's reversal of the proposed ban came a few weeks after he met with the CEO of Dow Chemical Company, the world's largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/2350d7be5e24469ab445089bf663cdcb" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> The Associated Press.</p><p>In the Ninth Circuit's opinion, released Thursday morning, District Judge Jed Rakoff blasted the EPA's actions, stating that there "remains no justification for the EPA's 'continued failure to respond to the pressing health concerns presented by chlorpyrifos,' which has now placed the agency in direct contravention" of federal laws regulating food and pesticides.</p><p>"Today's court decision is a huge victory for public health, especially that of children," said Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the <a href="https://www.ewg.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Environmental Working Group</a>. "By requiring the EPA to finally ban chlorpyrifos, the Ninth Circuit is ensuring that the agency puts children's health, strong science and the letter of the law above corporate interests."</p><p>The Ninth Circuit decision orders the EPA to revoke all tolerances and cancel all registrations for chlorpyrifos within 60 days....</p></div></div><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">818</p><p class="print-title"><span style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=9f99384112&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pesticide Food Poisoning Suspected as 10 Die After Funeral in Peru</a> EW</span></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/05/19/long-before-scott-pruitt-epa-colluded-with-industry/"><font color="#000000">https://www.salon.com/2018/05/19/long-before-scott-pruitt-epa-colluded-with-industry/</font></a></p><p class="print-title">epa fail</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 20px 0px; line-height: 1.9em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a memo (p. 45) from the Poison Papers dated May 7, 1982, one of the EPA’s most senior scientists, Adrian Gross, wrote bluntly to John Melone, acting director of EPA’s Hazards Evaluation Division, that: “the evidence is overwhelming that permethrin has a marked tumor-inducing or carcinogenic activity which is expressed in many different forms.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 20px 0px; line-height: 1.9em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="">Gross drew his conclusion from the seven long-term rat and mouse carcinogenicity studies on permethrin that were available to the EPA at the time. Five of the seven were audited by the Agency and all showed clear evidence of scientific misconduct that disguised evidence of harm:</font></p><div id="gpt_oop_4" class="text-center d-none d-sm-block gpt_in_article" data-google-query-id="CMPh4MKG69sCFZDFwAodF6oF8A" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="google_ads_iframe/1026302/article_page/in_article_outstream_0container" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0pt none; margin: auto;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3em; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; padding-bottom: 10px;">In one study, conducted by UK chemical company ICI, 160 mice were to be culled during the experiment and histologically examined. For reasons that no one at ICI or EPA could explain, 19 mice were <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">missing</a></u> (p. 18 of the linked document). As a highly trained toxicologist, Adrian Gross appreciated that such a breach of the study protocol invalidated any conclusion of safety.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; padding-bottom: 10px;">Another study, conducted by Burroughs-Wellcome (also a manufacturer of permethrin), was equally plagued by <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">mysterious omissions</a> </u>(p. 30). In this case 10 livers, 14 lungs and 131 pituitary glands that were supposed to be examined for pathology were missing. Once again, no explanation for the absence was forthcoming.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; padding-bottom: 10px;">Gross also observed extraordinarily lax reporting of animal pathologies. He <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">noted</a></u> (p. 27) that: “… no professional pathologist was in attendance at the time the experimental animals were dissected after death in order to record grossly observable pathologic alterations in their carcasses and tissues.” Gross then noted how an EPA pathologist found more tumors than reported by one applicant, even with just a cursory examination of their tissue sections.</li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; line-height: 1.9em; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These and other serious lapses in the studies — which included fraudulent reporting — prompted Gross to <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">write</a></u> (p. 37): “I cannot see how anyone in complete control of his senses could place any kind of reliability in any study conducted according to such practices" <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">and later</a></u>, (p. 45) "none of these seven studies can be regarded as having established that permethrin is ‘safe’ from a carcinogenic point of view.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; line-height: 1.9em; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just as disturbing, Gross showed EPA’s own evaluators systematically minimized or ignored evidence whenever studies showed that permethrin — despite the irregularities — elevated cancers and other health dangers.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; line-height: 1.9em; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In August of the following year, Gross followed up with the Director of EPA's Registration Division, Douglas Campt. It was in this memo that he made the ominous claim about permethrin’s cancer risk. Gross concluded that the proposed Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) level of 0.05mg/Kg body weight per day of permethrin would result, depending on the extrapolation method, in an upper limit of cancer rates among the human population of between 1 and 10 percent from permethrin alone. "I should think that risks of cancer of this order… are unacceptable to any rational person," he <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">wrote</a></u> (p. 96).</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; line-height: 1.9em; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Over Gross’s well-documented objections, EPA officials deemed permethrin safe. It was introduced to the market based on a final summary assessment written by Orville Paynter, the chief of EPA’s Toxicology Branch, and co-author Edwin Budd. This summary found no grounds for concern, concluding that “the risk of human oncogenic effects resulting from exposure to low levels of Permethrin is <u style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://p96%20in%20https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/3702055-PP-B0179.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">non existent or extremely low</a></u>” (p. 120)...</p><p>=</p><p>618 ca</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/landmark-glyphosate-case-2571385642.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/landmark-glyphosate-case-2571385642.html</a></p><div>=</div><p class="print-title"></p><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hawaii-ban-pesticides-chlorpyrifos-2565244742.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 25px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Hawaii Becomes First State in the U.S. to Ban the Toxic Pesticide, Chlorpyrifos</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2565244742" data-authors="Center for Food Safety" data-headline="Hawaii Becomes First State in the U.S. to Ban the Toxic Pesticide, Chlorpyrifos" style="margin: 10px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief"><p style="margin: 10px 0px;">Tuesday Hawaii made history, as it became the first state in the U.S. to ban the pesticide <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chlorpyrifos" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">chlorpyrifos</a>, a highly toxic neurotoxin that causes significant damage to brain development in children. The pesticide's detrimental health effects led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Obama administration to propose banning all of its agricultural uses, but the Pruitt-led EPA under the current administration reversed this pledge. The bill, SB3095, is a significant first step in protecting public health from pesticide harms for the State of Hawaii. In addition to banning chlorpyrifos, SB3095 requires all users of Restricted Use Pesticides (RUPs) to report usage of these <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">pesticides</a>, and mandates minimum 100-foot no-spray zones for RUPs around schools during school hours...</p></div></div></div><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">history roundup</p><p class="print-title"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/glyphosate-monsantos-toxic-legacy">https://www.alternet.org/environment/glyphosate-monsantos-toxic-legacy</a></p><p> =</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/california-pesticides-health-2539988928.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/california-pesticides-health-2539988928.html</a></p><p>
</p><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">California Court Ruling Ends Decades of State Pesticide Spraying</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></p><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2539988928" data-authors="Center for Biological Diversity" data-headline="California Court Ruling Ends Decades of State Pesticide Spraying" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p>A judge has ordered the California Department of Food and Agriculture to stop using chemical <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pesticides</a> in its statewide program until the agency complies with state environmental laws.
The <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/2018-2-22-California-Dept-of-Food-and-Ag-pesticides-ruling.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">injunction</a>, issued late last week, is a sweeping victory for 11 public-health, conservation, citizen and food-safety groups and the city of Berkeley. The coalition sued the state after unsuccessfully attempting for years to persuade the agency to shift to a sustainable approach to pest control that protects human health and the environment.</p><p>Despite thousands of comment letters urging the department to take a safer approach, officials in 2014 approved a program that gave them broad license to spray 79 pesticides, some known to cause <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cancer</a> and birth defects, anywhere in the state, including schools, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/organic" style="text-decoration-line: none;">organic</a> farms, public parks and residential yards.</p><p>Spraying was allowed indefinitely and required no analysis of the health and environmental impacts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chemicals</a> at the specific application sites and no public notice or scrutiny of treatment decisions. Many of the pesticides are also highly toxic to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bees</a>, butterflies, fish and birds.
This injunction follows a Jan. 8 <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/2018-1-8-NCRA-v-CDFA-Consolidated-Ruling.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ruling</a> by Judge Timothy M. Frawley voiding approval of the agency's statewide program for numerous violations of state environmental laws, including relying on "unsupported assumptions and speculation" to conclude that pesticides would not contaminate <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water" style="text-decoration-line: none;">water</a> bodies. The ruling also cited the state's "woefully deficient" analysis of the cumulative danger of increasing the more than 150 million pounds of pesticides already being used in California each year.
The court process culminating revealed not only far-reaching flaws in the state's analysis of the environmental harm caused by the department's pesticide use but also the agency's decades-long history of evading disclosure of the human health and environmental impacts of its activities by granting itself repeated "emergency" exemptions from environmental laws.
"After more than 30 years of disregard for state environmental laws, the agency's chemical weapons have finally been taken off the table," said Nan Wishner of the California Environmental Health Initiative. "We hope the department will take this opportunity to shift course and apply sound <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">science</a>, partner with the public, and develop a more sustainable, transparent approach."
The court also held that the agency had to give public notice of its activities, which officials had insisted was not required.
"The court rejected the agency's blank check to spray people's yards, exposing children and pets to a range of pesticides that can cause serious long-term problems, including cancer, asthma and IQ loss," said Debbie Friedman, founder of <a href="https://www.momsadvocatingsustainability.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">MOMS Advocating Sustainability</a>. "If only the $4.5 million in taxpayer dollars used to develop this outdated program had been spent to develop a modern, sustainable approach that does not rely on toxic chemicals, just imagine what progress we could have made toward a healthier environment for everyone."</p><p>...</p></div></div><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/farmers-and-environmentalists-sue-trumps-epa-over-approval-monsantos-disastrous-dicamba">https://www.alternet.org/environment/farmers-and-environmentalists-sue-trumps-epa-over-approval-monsantos-disastrous-dicamba</a></p><p class="print-title">La<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">st year's farm season was the first year Monsanto’s newly approved XtendiMax pesticide was used. Crop damage was so bad that multiple</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://agfax.com/2017/12/14/dicamba-2018-states-struggle-with-application-restrictions-dtn/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">states had to step in</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and take action to protect their farmers. Why? Because, as revealed below, U.S. agriculture has rarely if ever seen such a dramatic and disastrous season as 2017, the result of our government regulators failing to protect farmers and the environment—instead doing the bidding of chemical companies.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong>Dicamba and Monsanto’s XtendiMax</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Monsanto's "new" pesticide is actually just an old pesticide with a new twist: dicamba, a pesticide more than 50 years old, intended for use on Monsanto's new genetically engineered dicamba-resistant corn and soybeans. Dicamba has been sold in various forms <a href="https://www.bna.com/dicamba-dust-settles-n73014463916/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">since 1967</a> and used primarily with <a href="https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/blog/bob-hartzler/thoughts-dicamba-dilemma" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cereal crops like corn</a> and wheat, which can tolerate small doses of it. However, its notorious propensity to drift made it unpopular with most farmers, <a href="https://blog-crop-news.extension.umn.edu/2017/09/herbicides-alone-cannot-adequately.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">who switched to safer herbicides</a> as they became available. Because dicamba is extremely toxic to traditional cotton and soybean, the pesticide previously could be used only before these plants sprouted, to clear a field of weeds early in the season, and few used it for that purpose.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Monsanto's genetically engineered varieties changed all that, allowing XtendiMax to be sprayed "over-the-top" of the dicamba-resistant crops, much later in the season. This is also when neighboring crops have leafed out and are susceptible to crop injury—and when higher temperatures increase vapor drift. Now, the agribusiness giant can conveniently market patented GE dicamba-resistant seeds (which are also resistant to Roundup herbicide) together with XtendiMax, as the "<a href="https://www.roundupreadyxtend.com/Pages/default.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System</a>."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong>Doubling down on the pesticide treadmill</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">This crop system is Monsanto's false solution to a problem of its own making. For 20 years, the company has sold Roundup and seeds genetically engineered to resist Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate. This "Roundup Ready" crop system has <a href="https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2190-4715-24-24" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">dramatically and controversially increased the overall pesticide output</a> into our environment, making Roundup the most used pesticide in the history of mankind, contaminating our watersheds, soils and harming biodiversity. However, it also caused a related agronomic problem: <a href="https://www.weeds.iastate.edu/mgmt/2004/twoforone.shtml" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Monsanto told farmers</a> they could rely entirely on Roundup without weeds becoming resistant to glyphosate, contrary to weed science experts' warnings. But as with overusing antibiotics, Roundup overuse generated an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704025304575284390777746822" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">epidemic of glyphosate-resistant "superweeds"</a> infesting an estimated <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1505660" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">100 million acres of U.S. cropland</a>.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">So now, Monsanto's <a href="https://www.roundupreadyxtend.com/Pages/default.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">new business model</a> consists of GE soybean and cotton to resist both dicamba and Roundup so they can both to be sprayed freely without killing the crops. Although Monsanto presents the ability to kill glyphosate-resistant weeds with dicamba as a quick fix to the glyphosate-resistant weed epidemic, it will actually make things worse. The massively increased dicamba use spurred by Monsanto's crops—<a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0187-0866" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nearly a 100-fold increase on soybeans alone</a>—will foster rapid evolution of still more intractable superweeds, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/62/1/75/295845" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">now resistant to both</a> pesticides. There are <a href="https://www.agweb.com/article/first-signs-of-dicamba-resistance-naa-chris-bennett/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">already initial signs of dicamba resistance</a> arising in farmers' most feared weed, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaranthus_palmeri" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Palmer amaranth</a>, in Arkansas and Tennessee.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong>Disastrous 2017 Season</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Just as critics had warned, dicamba sprayed on Monsanto's GE soybeans and cotton volatilized, forming vapor clouds that drifted to damage a host of crops and wild plants. By July, farmers officially reported dicamba drift damaged 2.5 million acres of soybeans alone, rising to over <a href="https://ipm.missouri.edu/IPCM/2017/10/final_report_dicamba_injured_soybean/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">3.5 million acres in 16 states by August</a>. Many other crops were also damaged, including <a href="https://weedscience.missouri.edu/2017%20Dicamba%20Injury%20Forum.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tomatoes, melons, fruit and nut trees, and vegetables</a>. Because experts estimate <a href="https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/crops/article/2017/09/20/state-pesticide-regulators-face-2018" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">only one in ten dicamba drift episodes were reported</a>, the true impacts could be ten times greater. Dicamba also injured residential gardens, shrubs and trees. Flowering wild plants near cropland also suffered, with potential harms to pollinators robbed of nectar and pollen resources, as well as hundreds of endangered species. Agronomists reported the scale of damage was "uncharted territory," and they had <a href="https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/crops/article/2017/09/20/state-pesticide-regulators-face-2018" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">never seen herbicide-related drift damage</a> on anything <a href="https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/dicamba-woes-drain-state-agencies-vex-companies" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">approaching this scale before</a>.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">Dicamba drift threatens farmers' livelihoods, by slowing soybean <a href="https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/5063/how-monsanto-is-devastating-thousands-of-farms-across-20-states" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">growth and reducing yields</a>, costing them millions. Dicamba has drifted so rampantly that many farmers <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/weedkiller-dicamba-unlocks-record-harvests-and-a-web-of-conflict/article_fa3ba16e-10ef-5220-b1a0-71a84bcd7668.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">feel compelled</a> to plant Monsanto’s seeds, which are considerably more expensive than others, to avoid crop injury—which many feel is <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/dicamba-damage-is-back-and-possibly-worse-than-before/article_2e33ec05-ae98-5468-92f8-bccf6bcd7698.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a form of extortion</a>. Farmers have banded together to file <a href="https://www.classaction.com/dicamba/lawsuit/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">class action lawsuits against Monsanto</a>, in an attempt to recoup their losses. Dicamba drift has torn apart rural communities, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/business/monsanto-dicamba-weed-killer.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pitting farmer against farmer</a>. One dicamba drift dispute resulted in the <a href="https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/off-target-dicamba-movement-prompts-arkansas-shooting" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">gunshot death</a> of an Arkansas grower.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong>EPA and Monsanto's failure to protect farmers</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong>...</strong></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="https://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cheers.asp">https://www.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">snopes.</span>com/medical/toxins/cheers.asp</a></p><p class="print-title">... eg</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="copyright_text_color" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">ORIGINS:</span></font> Yet again an interesting mix of truth and scare has been loosed upon us all. While the November<b> 2004</b> <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">e-mail</nobr> quoted above was relatively factual, its wording left those who received it with an impression far removed from the truth. While the proposed investigation was real, the nature of the test subjects was misunderstood, leading to those who heard of to arrive at some erroneous</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">conclusions.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Through a research project known as the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS), the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) planned to gather data about pesticide and household chemical exposure in very young children. The study was set to begin in the summer of 2005 in Jacksonville, Florida, and would have entailed monitoring <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">60 infants</nobr> (newborn to just shy of <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">13 months</nobr> old) for a period of two years.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">However, while the <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">e-mail</nobr> left readers with the impression that poverty-stricken families were for the price of a camcorder and $970 heartlessly offering up their tots as lab rats, the little ones to be deliberately sickened by cruel scientists intent upon advancing human knowledge even at the price of <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">60 babies</nobr> potentially dealt life-long serious physical ailments by exposure to dreadful chemicals, the truth was quite different. One of the reasons the EPA chose Duval County, Florida, as the site of this research had to do with year-round pesticide use in that area. The children who would have been the subjects of the study live there. In other words, if all the clipboard-wielding EPA people stayed home and the project were canceled before it began, these same children would be exposed to these same pesticides and in the same amounts, due to nothing more sinister than where their parents chose to settle and raise their families.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The EPA would not have been administering pesticides to children. Children who were <u style="box-sizing: inherit;">already</u> exposed to pesticides due to where they lived would have been studied by the EPA</b>.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Given that these youngsters were coming into contact with noxious chemicals because of where they lived, the EPA saw a good opportunity to examine the effects of such compounds on small children by studying subjects drawn from this particular group. CHEERS would have tracked <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">60 of</nobr> these little ones over the course of two years, measuring not only their exposure to pesticides but also to ordinary household chemicals (cleaning products and the like). The parents of kids taking part in the study would have had to keep very careful logs on which products were used and in which amounts in their homes. They would also have been required to videotape their tykes being studied and maintain logs of the little ones’ activities. For this, and for allowing researchers into the family domicile every few months to assess the children being observed and to examine the homes, these parents would have received a $970 stipend and would have been allowed at the end of the two years to keep the video cameras.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="copyright_text_color" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">UPDATE:</span></font> On 8 April 2005, the proposed study was canceled. As to why, <nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap !important;">Stephen L.</nobr> Johnson, Acting Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said:</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.16px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></p><div class="quote_style" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); padding: 20px; margin: 20px 0px; position: relative; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); letter-spacing: 0.16px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Last fall, in light of questions about the study design, I directed that all work on the study stop immediately and requested an independent review. Since that time, many misrepresentations about the study have been made. EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study.</font><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">I have concluded that the study cannot go forward, regardless of the outcome of the independent review. EPA must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p></div><p class="print-title"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><nobr style="box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); white-space: pre-wrap !important;">Stephen L.</nobr><span style="letter-spacing: 0.16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Johnson, Acting Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,</span></font></font></font></p><div><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">=</font></font></font></div><div><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">sW</font></font></font></div><div><div id="mw-content-text" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" lang="en"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b>Stephen L. Johnson</b> was nominated March 4, 2005, by President <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush</a> to be Administrator of the U.S. <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Environmental Protection Agency</a>. <sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup>In 2010, Johnson joined the board of directors of <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Scotts_Miracle-Gro_Company" title="Scotts Miracle-Gro Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Scotts Miracle-Gro Company</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">According to the White House news release announcing his nomination: "Mr. Johnson currently serves as Acting Administrator of the EPA. Prior to becoming the Acting Administrator, he served as the Deputy Administrator.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"Mr. Johnson has been a part of the EPA for 24 years. He was Assistant Administrator of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. He also served as Deputy Director of the Office of Pesticide Programs. Prior to joining EPA, Mr. Johnson served as Deputy of Operations at <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hazelton_Laboratories" title="Hazelton Laboratories" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hazelton Laboratories</a> Corporation and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Litton_Bionetics,Inc.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Litton Bionetics, Inc. (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Litton Bionetics, Inc.</a></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"In 2001, Mr. Johnson received the Presidential Rank Award, which is the highest award that can be given to a civilian federal employee. He received his bachelor's degree from Taylor University and his master's degree from The George Washington University." <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050304-3.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" standalone="standalone" no="no" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cpath="Cpath" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" m1.5="M1.5" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" m5.765="M5.765" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" m9.995="M9.995" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">[1]</a></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Johnson, who has a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in pathology, is the first scientist to head the EPA. He replaced <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Christine_Todd_Whitman" title="Christine Todd Whitman" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Christine Todd Whitman</a>, who resigned, saying the EPA's scientific mission was being compromised by political pressures from the Bush Administration.</font></font></font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><h2 style="background: none; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Contents</font></font></font></h2><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> <span class="toctoggle" style="user-select: none;"> [<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">hide</a>] </span></font></font></font></div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#Shelving_EPA.27s_own_findings_about_greenhouse_emissions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Shelving EPA's own findings about greenhouse emissions</span></a></font></font></font></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#SourceWatch_Resources" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">SourceWatch Resources</span></a></font></font></font></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">External links</span></a></font></font></font><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li></ul></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);" linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Shelving_EPA.27s_own_findings_about_greenhouse_emissions">Shelving EPA's own findings about greenhouse emissions</span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">On March 27, 2008, Johnson dismissed findings by his own agency that greenhouse gases threaten the public and announced that he would initiate a lengthy public comment period about whether greenhouse gases pose a risk before responding to a U.S. Supreme Court order requiring EPA impose regulations on polluters. The move effectively delayed any federal action to limit greenhouse gas emissions until well past the end of George W. Bush's final term in office. According to an article in the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, Johnson's strategy of prolonged evaluation "mirrors that advocated by a coalition of industry groups and conservative think tanks, including the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heritage_Foundation" title="Heritage Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Heritage Foundation</a>." A Sierra Club attorney called the delaying tactic "outrageous," and Representative <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Henry_Waxman" title="Henry Waxman" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Henry Waxman</a> (D-CA) said the Bush administration was "recklessly abandoning its responsibility to address the global warming crisis." An EPA spokesman, however, called the move "an historic moment" because "no administration has taken this step to evaluate this new pollutant."<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
</font></p><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);" linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-headline" id="SourceWatch_Resources">SourceWatch Resources</span></font></h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" a="A" csvg="Csvg" http="http" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="cx" cy="cy" r="r" fill="fill" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration" title="Bush administration" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bush administration</a></font></li></ul><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);" linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-headline" id="External_links">External links</span></font></h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" f="F" e="E" a="A" csvg="Csvg" http="http" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="cx" cy="cy" r="r" fill="fill" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Johanna Neuman, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pesticides9apr09,1,6879389.story?coll=la-headlines-nation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" standalone="standalone" no="no" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cpath="Cpath" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" m1.5="M1.5" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" m5.765="M5.765" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" m9.995="M9.995" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">"Acting EPA Chief Withdraws Controversial Pesticide Project. Canceling the study on children clears the way for a Senate vote on his nod to head the agency,"</a> <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, April 9, 2005.</font></li></ul><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; line-height: 1.6;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span></font></h3><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050304-3.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" standalone="standalone" no="no" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cpath="Cpath" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" m1.5="M1.5" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" m5.765="M5.765" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" m9.995="M9.995" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" word-wrap="word-wrap" break-word="break-word" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050304-3.html</a></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">Elana Schor, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/12/12greenwire-former-epa-administrator-johnson-joins-chemica-74808.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" standalone="standalone" no="no" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cpath="Cpath" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" m1.5="M1.5" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" m5.765="M5.765" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" m9.995="M9.995" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">Former EPA Administrator Johnson Joins Chemical Company Board</a>, New York Times, November 15, 2010.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stephen_L.Johnson#cite_ref-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">Wilson J, <i>Los Angeles Times</i> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-greenhouse28mar28,1,778760.story" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" standalone="standalone" no="no" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cpath="Cpath" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" m1.5="M1.5" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" m5.765="M5.765" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" m9.995="M9.995" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">EPA chief bides time on court's emissions order:</a> Shelving his agency's findings that greenhouse gases are a danger, he says he'll open a long public comment period] March 28, 2008</span></font></li></ol></div><div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" data-mw="interface" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both;"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Categories</a>: </font><ul style="list-style: none none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Climate_change" title="Category:Climate change" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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</font></div><div><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></font></div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/syngenta-neonicotinoids-2518688773.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">EPA Considers Allowing Bee-Killing Pesticide to Be Sprayed on 165 Million Acres of U.S. Farmland</a></font></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2518688773" data-authors="Center for Biological Diversity" data-headline="EPA Considers Allowing Bee-Killing Pesticide to Be Sprayed on 165 Million Acres of U.S. Farmland" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief"><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will consider allowing the bee-killing pesticide thiamethoxam to be sprayed on the most widely grown crops in the U.S. The <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2017-0234-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">application</a>, if approved, would allow the highly toxic pesticide to be sprayed directly on <a href="https://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Acre/Acre-06-30-2017.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">165 million acres</a> of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and potato.</font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The proposal by the agrochemical gian<b>t Syngenta</b> to dramatically escalate use of the harmful neonicotinoid pesticide came last Friday, on the same day the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/neonicotinoid-pesticides-birds-2518407784.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">EPA released new assessments</a> of the extensive dangers posed by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/neonicotinoids" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">neonicotinoids</a>, including thiamethoxam.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"If the EPA grants Syngenta's wish, it will spur catastrophic declines of aquatic invertebrates and pollinator populations that are already in serious trouble," said Lori Ann Burd, director of the <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Center for Biological Diversity's</a> environmental health program. "You know the pesticide-approval process is broken when the EPA announces it will consider expanding the use of this dangerous pesticide on the same day its own scientists reveal that the chemical kills birds and aquatic invertebrates."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Neonicotinoids have long been known to pose serious harm to bee populations. But the new EPA assessments found the commonly used <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">pesticides</a> can kill and harm birds of all sizes and pose significant dangers to aquatic invertebrates.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Thiamethoxam is currently widely used as a seed coating for these crops. This application would allow it to be sprayed directly on the crops, greatly increasing the amount of pesticide that could be used.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The just-released <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0581-0093" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">aquatic and non-pollinator risk assessment</a> found that the majority of uses of the neonicotinoid on currently registered crops resulted in risks to freshwater invertebrates that exceeded levels of concern—the threshold at which harm is known to occur.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The EPA did not assess risks associated with spraying the pesticides on the crops it announced it was considering expanding use to on Friday. But it is likely that increasing the number of crops approved for spraying would dramatically increase that risk.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">In January the EPA released a <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0581-0034" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">preliminary assessment</a> of on-field exposures to thiamethoxam that found all uses of the pesticide—on foliar, soil and seeds—result in exposures that exceed the level of concern for acute and chronic risk to adult bees. But the agency has taken no steps to restrict use of these products and is now considering expanding their use.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Despite growing scientific and public concern about neonicotinoids, the application for expanded use of thiamethoxam was not announced by the EPA but quietly posted in the Federal Register.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">"For years the EPA and pesticide companies bragged that by using treated seeds they were avoiding spraying insecticides, and despite the science showing that these treated seeds were deadly to birds, claimed that they were environmentally beneficial," said Burd. "But we can expect the Trump EPA to now ignore the risks to birds and bees and approve these ultra-toxic pesticides to be sprayed across hundreds of millions of U.S. acres."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Neonicotinoids are a class of <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">pesticides</a> known to have both acute and chronic effects on aquatic invertebrates, honeybees, birds, butterflies and other pollinator species; they are a major factor in overall pollinator declines. These systemic insecticides cause entire plants, including pollen and fruit, to become toxic to pollinators; they are also slow to break down and therefore <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3941#.VPTcRy4RRpj" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">build up in the environment</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">A large and growing body of independent science links neonicotinoids to catastrophic bee declines. Twenty-nine independent scientists who conducted a global review of more than 1,000 independent studies on neonicotinoids found overwhelming evidence linking the pesticides to declines in populations of bees, birds, earthworms, butterflies and other wildlife.</font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/09/the-evidence-points-in-one-direction-we-must-ban-neonicotinoids" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">The evidence points in one direction – we must ban neonicotinoids ... ›</a></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/neonicotinoid-pesticides-birds-2518407784.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">EPA: Neonicotinoid Pesticides Pose Serious Risks to Birds, Aquatic ... ›</a></font></li></ul></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/syngenta-neonicotinoids-2518688773.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/syngenta-neonicotinoids-2518688773.html</a></font></p><div><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
</font></div></div></div></div></div><p class="print-title"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></font></p><p class="print-title"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">aha global warming</font></p><p class="print-title"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/climate-change-creating-global-pest-problem-will-spread-disease-and-threaten-food" class="external text" title="https://www.alternet.org/environment/climate-change-creating-global-pest-problem-will-spread-disease-and-threaten-food" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; background: url(" lock_icon.gif="lock_icon.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" font-family="font-family" georgia="Georgia" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size">Climate Change Is Creating a Global Pest Problem That Will Spread Disease and Threaten Food Production</a><span style="" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> The future could hold less coffee and more Zika. 11/17 see </span><a href="https://ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php/Chemicals" class="external text" title="https://ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php/Chemicals" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" lock_icon.gif="lock_icon.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" font-family="font-family" georgia="Georgia" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size">Chemicals</a><span style="" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">.</span></font></p><p class="print-title"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></font></p><p class="print-title"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/a-wide-open-door-for-pesticide-lobbyists-at-agriculture-department">https://www.propublica.org/article/a-wide-open-door-for-pesticide-lobbyists-at-agriculture-department</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b>At a private meeting in September, congressional aides asked Rebeckah Adcock, a top official at the Department of Agriculture, to reveal the identities of the people serving on the deregulation team she leads at the agency.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Teams like Adcock’s, created under an executive order by President Trump, had been taking heat from Democratic lawmakers over their secrecy. What little was publicly known suggested that some of the groups’ members had deep ties to the industries being regulated.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock, a former pesticide industry executive, brushed off the request, according to House aides familiar with the exchange, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Making the names public, they recalled her saying, would trigger a deluge of lobbyists.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b>In fact, interviews and visitor logs at the Agriculture Department showed that Adcock had already been meeting with lobbyists, including those from her former employer, the pesticide industry’s main trade group, CropLife America,</b> and its members. CropLife pushes the agenda of pesticide makers in Washington, including easing rules related to safety standards and clean water.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock, who left the trade group in April, maintained contact with her former industry allies despite a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4204225-Rebeckah-Adcock-Ethics-Agreement.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">signed ethics agreement</a> promising to avoid for one year issues involving CropLife as well as matters that she had lobbied about in the two years before joining the government.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">In one meeting, Adcock discussed issues banned by the ethics agreement with an executive who had been her lobbying partner weeks earlier at CropLife, according to the accounts of participants and the visitor logs, obtained through a public records request by The New York Times and ProPublica.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the USDA who also spoke on behalf of Adcock, said she had not violated her ethics agreement by meeting with her former industry allies. He also denied that Adcock had discussed issues related to her previous lobbying at the meeting, or that she had suggested that her deregulation team would be swamped by lobbyists if names of its members were released.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“The career ethics officers at USDA agree that this is not a violation of the ethics agreement that Rebeckah Adcock signed,” said Murtaugh, citing a 2009 memo by the Office of Government Ethics.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Others dispute that interpretation of the memo; the ethics office declined to say whether the memo applied to the meeting, citing its policy not to discuss individual cases.</font></p><aside class="promo small right" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 8.29688px 0px 33.2344px 33.2344px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: right; clear: right; width: 327.328px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(216, 214, 211); border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Help Us Investigate</font></h3><div class="story-entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1rem 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="description" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="hed" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-indent: inherit; text-transform: inherit; letter-spacing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/task-force" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">Help Us Identify the Officials Helping Trump Roll Back Regulations</a></font></h3><h4 class="dek" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-indent: inherit; text-transform: inherit; letter-spacing: inherit;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">In February, President Trump ordered federal agencies to form task forces charged with finding regulations to weaken or eliminate. While the names of appointees to executive-agency task forces are typically made public, some agencies are refusing to reveal who is on their panels</font></h4></div></div></aside><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock is scheduled to appear Tuesday before subcommittees of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is tracking Trump’s deregulation effort.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In announcing the hearing, the committee, led by Republicans, applauded the deregulation teams for making an “unprecedented reduction in the federal regulatory footprint.”</span></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Republican members of the committee declined to comment about Adcock’s activities. Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, said that if Adcock had violated her ethics agreement, it contributed “to a troubling pattern of President Trump’s failure to ‘drain the swamp.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">In February, Trump ordered major federal agencies to set up the deregulation teams, to fulfill a campaign promise to cut red tape for businesses. Corporations and industry groups quickly hired lawyers, lobbyists and economists to help them influence the process with billions of dollars at stake. The regulations under review cover a range of subjects, including the cleanliness of drinking water and the safety of highways.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><b>The Trump administration has declined to make public the names of many members of the teams. It has also generally not provided records related to the teams’ calendars and correspondence.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A joint investigation published in July by The Times and ProPublica found that the teams included former employees of industry-financed organizations that oppose environmental regulations; lawyers who have represented companies in cases against federal regulators; and staff members of so-called political dark-money groups. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some are reviewing rules that their previous employers sought to weaken or kill, and at least two may be positioned to profit personally if certain regulations are undone. In all, the two news organizations have identified 112 current and former team members, including 41 with potential conflicts.</span></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">At the meeting on Capitol Hill in September, Adcock lamented the scrutiny that her team was under, a House aide familiar with the exchange said. Adcock cited, in particular, public records requests for calendars and emails.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Times and ProPublica asked for those records this year and have received only a few. Most other federal agencies have been similarly unresponsive. The visitor logs that have been obtained are often handwritten sign-in sheets. They appear to show only a fraction of meetings, and many are illegible. It is not known from the logs, for example, if Adcock or her team had met with environmental or science groups in addition to the industry representatives.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">In response to questions from reporters about possible conflicts of interest, agency officials across the government have said the deregulation teams are abiding by strict ethical standards, including rules that bar them from working on issues directly affecting recent employers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Records received through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Adcock entered such an agreement on April 26, pledging that she would “not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which I know CropLife America is a party or represents a party” for a year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The two knew each other well. From 2010 to early this year, Adcock and Bray lobbied together for CropLife, which represents Syngenta and Monsanto, among other pesticide makers.But in May, Kellie Bray, a lobbyist for CropLife, arrived for a meeting with Adcock, according to the visitor logs.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Disclosure records show that during those years the two advocated for the industry’s agenda at agencies, including the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, and in Congress. They pushed CropLife’s interests on bills and regulations relating to the impact of pesticides on water and human health.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Adcock’s departure from CropLife left the trade association short a seasoned lobbyist, but gave it a valuable contact in the top ranks of the USDA</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Bray said in an interview that in May, Adcock had met with her and the Southern Crop Production Association, a CropLife affiliate. Bray said she had sat in on the meeting but hadn’t talked.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“I facilitated the introduction,” she said. “That is all.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">After the meeting, the Southern Crop Production Association, which represents pesticide manufacturers, formulators and distributors across the South, said on its website that “Rebeckah has an exceptional understanding regarding the many issues facing agriculture due, in large part, to her previous position with CLA,” using the acronym for CropLife America.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Among the topics discussed, according to the trade group’s website, were the tests that pesticides must undergo to prove they are safe and rules governing their use near water sources. The trade group did not respond to requests for comment. Bray confirmed that the group had discussed regulations about the use of pesticides near water.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Discussing policy related to the impact of pesticides on water is deemed off limits under Adcock’s ethics agreement. Murtaugh, the USDA spokesman, said Adcock disputed that she had discussed any off-limits subject.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“If any participant declared concern regarding any issue precluded by Adcock’s agreement, she politely and firmly instructed them it was not a matter she could discuss or assist with,” he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">He also said Adcock had instructed Bray not to participate in the meeting and did not recall her being in the room.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Murtaugh said a provision in the memorandum from the Office of Government Ethics allowed an appointee like Adcock to attend meetings with a former employer or client so long as five or more other stakeholders participated. In the May meeting, he said, four of the Southern Crop Production Association representatives were affiliated with individual companies: Syngenta, Albaugh, Triangle Chemical and Crop Production Services.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">However, three of those companies are also members of the CropLife trade group, Adcock’s former employer. And they were attending in their capacity as the executive committee of the Southern Crop Production Association, according to the association’s website, not as individual company executives.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Walter M. Shaub Jr., who headed the Office of Government Ethics under President Barack Obama and during the early months of the Trump administration, said the provision cited by the USDA did not apply to the ethics regulation in Adcock’s agreement. Even if it did apply, he said, the meeting lacked a necessary diversity because the participants were all affiliated with one trade group. He also said it was irrelevant that Bray hadn’t spoken.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“If she brought them there, signed into the sign-in log, attended the meeting that she may or may not have set up, it definitely counts as a meeting with her,” said Shaub, who has been critical of the Trump administration.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Before Adcock worked at CropLife, she served as a lobbyist for the farming industry at the American Farm Bureau Federation. Among its donors is Farm Credit, a lending institution. In July, Adcock met with a delegation from Farm Credit, according to a participant.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">One of the executives who attended — Jeremy Brown, president of Broadview Agriculture, a Texas cotton producer — said in an interview that he knew Adcock from the Farm Bureau. For those who did not know her, Adcock explained her past lobbying on behalf of the farming industry, and she asked for recommendations on regulatory changes, he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“Any time you have people already familiar with the industry, it helps,” Brown said. “They can hopefully get their feet on the ground and get the work in.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He said he had pushed Adcock to get cottonseed reclassified as an oil seed crop so cotton producers could be eligible again for certain government subsidies if revenue dropped. He also discussed what he termed overreach on clean-water rules.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“She was taking notes, being really receptive,” Brown said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another highlight, he said, was the access the group enjoyed. Never before had he attended a meeting in the private gathering room just outside the office of the secretary </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">of agriculture.</span></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I’ve been to the USDA a couple other times,” Brown said, “and this was the first time I’ve been able to go to what they call the Cage.”</font></font></p><div class="bottom-notes" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="note story-update" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Update: The Agriculture Department provided the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4212284-USDA-Task-Force-Member-List.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">full list</a> of its deregulation team appointees Tuesday following publication of this story, said Jennifer Werner, a spokeswoman for committee Democrats, citing her Republican counterparts.</font></p></div></div><div class="topics-list" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline;"><font class="quote_font" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Filed under:</strong></font></p> <ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.625rem 2em 1.625rem 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: none; display: inline;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/topics/trump-administration" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">The Trump Administration</a></li></ul></div><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-pesticides-assessments-2509672274.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-pesticides-assessments-2509672274.html</a></p><p class="print-title"> no link</p><p class="print-title"><b>Trump Administration Seeks Two-Year Delay on Pesticide Assessments Following Industry Request</b></p><p class="print-title">The Trump administration filed a motion before a federal judge requesting two more years to complete an assessment on the risks of three common pesticides on endangered species.</p><p class="print-title">The pesticides in question—chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon—are three organophosphate insecticides known to harm the vast majority of the nearly 1,800 animals and plants protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to an extensive federal study.</p><p class="print-title"><b>Notably, the Associated Press reported, the administration's motion comes after chlorpyrifos-maker Dow Chemical Co. and two other organophosphate manufacturers asked the government to ignore the findings of the aforementioned study.</b></p><p class="print-title">"It's appallingly clear that the pesticide industry is now essentially running Trump's EPA," said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "This disturbing request shows that [EPA administrator Scott] Pruitt and Trump are more interested in protecting the profits of their corporate buddies than the hundreds of endangered species threatened by these deadly pesticides."</p><p class="print-title"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If the request is granted, it would modify a 2014 legal agreement secured by the Center for Biological Diversity that required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess the pesticides' harms by the end of 2017.</font></p><p class="print-title">According to a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity: </p><p class="print-title">?"Under the Endangered Species Act, the EPA must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to ensure its actions do not jeopardize endangered species or harm their habitats.</p><p class="print-title">Despite this clear mandate, the EPA has essentially ignored the plight of endangered species injured and killed by pesticides. Only after the Center's 2014 legal victory did the agency agree to comply with this long-standing requirement.</p><p class="print-title">Unless the court approves the new delay request, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries services will use those assessments to develop common-sense measures to reduce the pesticides' harm to endangered species—for example by limiting spraying in their habitat—by the end of the year."</p><p class="print-title">The Associated Press pointed out that this move "is the latest example of the Trump administration seeking to block or delay environmental rules at the behest of the industry."</p><p class="print-title"><b>Dow contributed $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee. President Trump also named Dow CEO Andrew Liveris head of his American Manufacturing Council and received the president's ceremonial pen used to sign the executive order aimed at eliminating regulations that he claims are damaging to the U.S. economy.</b></p><p class="print-title">In March, according to records obtained by the Associated Press, Pruitt met with Liveris for about 30 minutes at a Houston hotel. Later that month, Pruitt announced that he would no longer pursue a ban on chlorpyrifos from being used on food, ignoring his agency's own review that even small amounts of the pesticide could impact fetus and infant brain development.</p><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/harvey-pesticide-naled-2484385387.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/harvey-pesticide-naled-2484385387.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>Naled monsanto partner bad for bees</div><div>
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-dicamba-2468298141.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-dicamba-2468298141.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">17 States Investigate Dicamba Damage Complaints Spanning 2.5 Million Acres</font></h1></div><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="article-body body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url selectionShareable" data-url="https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-dicamba-2468298141.html" data-headline="17 States Investigate Dicamba Damage Complaints Spanning 2.5 Million Acres" data-elid="2468298141" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="article-description body-description" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Complaints of crop damage from the powerful and volatile weedkiller <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dicamba" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">dicamba</a> have increased rapidly around the country</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;">According to weed scientist and University of Missouri associate professor <a href="https://plantsciences.missouri.edu/faculty/bradley.cfm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Kevin Bradley</a>, 17 state governments are investigating more than 1,400 official complaints of dicamba-related injuries this year covering 2.5 million acres.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;">"This is a substantial problem that needs to be addressed," Bradley <a href="https://ipm.missouri.edu/IPCM/2017/7/Ag_Industry_Do_we_have_a_problem_yet/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">wrote</a>.</p><div id="AdThrive_Content_1_desktop" class="adthrive-ad adthrive-dynamic adthrive-content" data-google-query-id="CPbF3d7Cu9UCFYR7YgodefEH6g" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center; overflow-x: visible !important;"><div id="google_ads_iframe_18190176/AdThrive_Content_1/58d2e52b44e6236dc5819ee2_0container" style="border: 0pt none;"><span style="text-align: left;">Reports suggest that farmers applied the herbicide to</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto" target="blank" style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Monsanto</a><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">Co.'s new</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-monsanto-dicamba-gmos-2087899331.html" target="blank" style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton crops</a><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">to beat back ever-resistant</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/superweeds" style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">weeds</a><span style="text-align: left;">, but the drift-prone chemical can be picked up by the wind and land on neighboring non-target fields, crops and native plants. Fruits and vegetables, as well as other crops that are not</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/gmo-genetically-modified-organism/" target="blank" style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">genetically engineered</a><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">to withstand dicamba, are often left</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/missouri-peach-farm-sues-monsanto-dicamba-drift-2133507960.html" style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">cupped and distorted</a><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">when exposed to the chemical.</span></div></div><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The current rash of complaints echoes the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-dicamba-1995121281.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">similar devastation last summer</a>, when 10 states reported hundreds of thousands of crop acres adversely impacted by the apparent misuse of the herbicide. </span>
</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;">Although dicamba has been around for decades, Monsanto, DuPont Co. and BASF SE sells new formulations of the herbicide that's said to be less drift-prone and volatile than older versions when used correctly.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;">Monsanto execs defended its product, blaming growers for using older versions of dicamba or not following directions on the new product label. As reported by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-01/farmers-cry-foul-as-pesticide-wreaks-havoc-across-u-s-crops" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Bloomberg</a>:
</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px;">The company attributes the drifting problem to farmers using illegal, off-label products that are more volatile—and thus more prone to drift—than the latest versions of dicamba. They may also be cleaning or using their spraying equipment incorrectly, or applying dicamba when it's windy, said Robb Fraley, executive vice president and chief technology officer.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;">But Bradley, University of Missouri's weed scientist, casted off what he considers as industry excuses:
</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px;">First, does 1,411 official dicamba-related injury investigations and/or approximately 2.5 million acres of dicamba-injured soybean constitute a problem for U.S. agriculture? I guess it depends on your perspective but my answer is an emphatic yes. If you think so as well, let others know how you feel and let's stop the standard denial routine that I have heard so often this season. Instead, lets put our time and effort into figuring out where we go from here as an industry and what's going to be different about next season.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px;">Second, I said previously that the purpose of this article is NOT to debate about the reasons for off target movement. And it isn't. And I'm not. But the reasons for off-target movement of dicamba are the number one thing we are going to have to discuss if you agree that there is a problem. So my last question is this; can you look at the scale and the magnitude of the problem on these maps and really believe that all of this can collectively be explained by some combination of physical drift, sprayer error, failure to follow guidelines, temperature inversions, generic dicamba usage, contaminated glufosinate products, and improper sprayer clean out, but that volatility is not also a factor?</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px;">...</p></div></div></div><div><p> =</p></div><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"> In his inaugural address, Donald Trump declared that, effective immediately, he was transferring power to "you, the people." The new president added, "For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.... That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment, it belongs to you."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Trump didn't go into any detail about whom he was referring to, but there's ample evidence to suggest "the people" who were acquiring power were powerful corporate interests. Consider <a href="https://apnews.com/2350d7be5e24469ab445089bf663cdcb/EPA-chief-met-with-Dow-CEO-before-deciding-on-pesticide-ban" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-decoration-line: none;">this Associated Press report</a>, for example.</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">The Trump administration's top environmental official met privately with the chief executive of Dow Chemical shortly before reversing his agency's push to ban a widely used pesticide after health studies showed it can harm children's brains, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's schedule shows he met with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris on March 9 for about a half hour at a Houston hotel.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">About three weeks later, Pruitt ignored the findings of his own agency's chemical safety experts <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-republican-war-science-intensifies-the-trump-era" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-decoration-line: none;">to allow the use</a> of Dow's chlorpyrifos pesticide on food. The AP's report added that EPA scientists concluded "ingesting even minuscule amounts of the chemical can interfere with the brain development of fetuses and infants."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">A spokesperson for Pruitt's agency said that when he spoke to Dow Chemical's CEO, the two did not discuss the pending decision on the pesticide. The timing, apparently, is supposed to be seen as a coincidence.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">A separate <a href="https://www.apnews.com/a29073ecef9b4841b2e6cca07202bb67/AP-Exclusive:-Pesticide-maker-tries-to-kill-risk-study" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-decoration-line: none;">AP report</a> noted in April, "<b>Dow Chemical chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris is a close adviser to President Donald Trump. The company wrote a $1 million check to help underwrite Trump's inaugural festivities</b>.... When Trump signed an executive order in February mandating the creation of task forces at federal agencies to roll back government regulations, Dow's chief executive was at Trump's side."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-the-debate-over-pesticides-unfolds-donald-trumps-swamp#break" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-decoration-line: none;">read more</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-the-debate-over-pesticides-unfolds-donald-trumps-swamp#break">http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-the-debate-over-pesticides-unfolds-donald-trumps-swamp#break</a></p><p><b></b></p><p>=</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/business/fact-check-paraquat-weed-killer-parkinsons.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/business/fact-check-paraquat-weed-killer-parkinsons.html</a></p><p> no link</p><p>LONDON — Syngenta, the Swiss pesticide giant, claims on its website that data from an influential 2011 study shows that farmers who use the weed killer paraquat are less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than the general population.</p><p>However, Syngenta’s claim is at odds with the actual findings of the study, according to two of its authors.</p><p>The 2011 study, carried out by the National Institutes of Health and researchers from other institutions around the world, found that people who used paraquat or another <b>pesticide, called rotenone, were roughly two and a half times more likely to develop Parkinson’s.</b></p><p>The work is known as the Farming and Movement Evaluation, or FAME, study. It drew on a sweeping United States government project called the Agricultural Heath Study, which tracked more than 80,000 farmers and their spouses, as well as other people who applied pesticides, in Iowa and North Carolina.</p><p>
</p><p>UNCERTAIN HARVEST</p><p>This Pesticide Is Prohibited in Britain. Why Is It Still Being Exported? DEC. 20, 2016</p><p>
</p><p>U.S. Regulator Signs Off on ChemChina-Syngenta Deal AUG. 22, 2016</p><p>
</p><p>Monsanto, in Bid for Syngenta, Reaches for a Business It Left Behind MAY 8, 2015</p><p>
</p><p>The FAME researchers identified 115 people from the Agricultural Health Study who developed Parkinson’s, and studied 110 of them who provided information on the pesticides they used.</p><p>The study was influential even among some people who had been skeptics of a connection between the chemicals and the disease. Gary W. Miller, a professor of environmental health at Emory University, referred to a link between Parkinson’s and paraquat as a “red herring” in a 2007 publication. But while Dr. Miller said in a recent email exchange that he had concerns about some previous research making the connection, “the FAME data are strong and should be considered.” He said the study “appears to show a connection between paraquat exposure and Parkinson’s disease.”</p><p>Because of the prominence of the FAME study, Syngenta addresses it on one of its websites, paraquat.com. Syngenta claims that the study shows that only 115 people had Parkinson’s out of the more than 80,000 people in the broader Agricultural Health Study. Therefore, “the incidence of Parkinson’s disease” in the study “appears to be lower than in the general U.S. population,” Syngenta says.</p><p>...</p><p></p><p> ---</p><p>http://www.alternet.org/environment/after-giving-1-million-trump-inauguration-dow-chemical-urges-administration-ignore</p><p>A<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">fter contributing $1 million to Donald Trump’s presidential festivities, pesticide maker<b> Dow Chemical Co</b>. is asking the Administration to set aside previous findings of federal scientists across multiple agencies that confirm the risks that organophosphate pesticides pose to about 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species. This comes after the Administration </span><a href="http://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2017/03/epa-reverses-course-allows-continued-use-highly-neurotoxic-pesticide-chlorpyrifos/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">abandoned plans to restrict</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos, also an organophosphate pesticide created by Dow, despite mountains of evidence that show the chemical’s neurotoxic impacts on children’s brains.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">In <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/Letters_to_Pruitt_Zinke_Ross_from_Dow_Chemical.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">letters</a> sent to government officials, lawyers for Dow urge Administration officials and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set aside “biological evaluations” that detail how three highly toxic organophosphate insecticides –chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon– harm nearly all 1,800 threatened and endangered animals and plants, claiming the process to be “fundamentally flawed.”</p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://www.alternet.org/food/farms-could-slash-pesticide-use-without-losses-research-reveals</p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-pruitt-chlorpyrifos-2352337722.html</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">A Pen Isn't the Only Gift Trump Gave Dow Chemical</p><p class="print-title">Perhaps the Senate, in its hearing on Scott Pruitt's nomination to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), should have questioned Pruitt as the chief pediatrician for America's children. As head of the EPA Pruitt gets to decide what is safe for our kids—in the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat and the communities they play. Senators didn't ask—but they are finding out.</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">In his first big test of what kind of pediatrician he will be, Pruitt decided to reverse an earlier EPA decision to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, a potent nerve gas banned from household use years ago, but still used in farms, orchards, pastures and golf courses.</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">Chlorpyrifos belongs to the same family as the nerve gas sarin—suspected of being behind the appalling chemical weapon attack which occurred this week in Syria, provoking appropriate outrage from the administration. But EPA has just decided to allow the continued dousing of America's rural landscapes with a close cousin—a different chemical weapon.Ch...causes of farm-worker pesticide poisoning—but is particularly toxic to young children and the fetus. The pesticide has come across my email screens periodically for over a decade, as organizations like the Nature Resources Defense Council slogged forward, petitioning the EPA to implement a simple requirement of federal pesticide law: that any pesticide must be shown to be safe before use. In 2015 the agency said is intended to ban it—but didn't finalize the decision. Eventually, courts ordered EPA to make a final decision on the ban—and Pruitt decided to ignore the science.</p><p class="print-title">He did not do so because he asserted that chlorpyrifos was safe; he simply said that there were uncertainties, and that in that situation farmers were entitled to continue to use the chemical, exposing farm workers, their children, surrounding communities and consumers of food sprayed with the chemical, to a pesticide whose safety is at best highly dubious—in quantities up to 14,000 times the safe level.</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">"We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment," Pruitt said—not the message you would expect to hear from a pediatrician if you asked him if you should give your kids foods laced with a potent neurotoxin that has been shown to damage their mental development.</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">This reversal of the clear requirement of federal pesticide law—that safety come first—along with Pruitt's revealing ordering of his priorities—regulatory certainty to pesticide users first, with human health qualified by "still"—reinforces something we are learning about the Trump administration.</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">Candidate Trump made a wide array of promises, many of them expressed within the 140 characters of a tweet. Huge numbers contradicted each other. How the administration would resolve those conflicts was one of the great unknowns. Trump, for example, proclaimed that "I want clean air and clean water" during his campaign. But he also pledged to dismantle the EPA.</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title">It has been a fairly consistent pattern in the first 10 weeks of the administration that a campaign promise to help the powerful was likely to be honored, while one to help the vulnerable would be an earlier casualty of priority setting. Children of farm workers don't rank as high as Dow Chemical, the main manufacturer and defender of chlorpyrifos. QED—we know how this administration will come down....carper ~ pruitt sue?</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title"> </p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">enlist duo pruitt sued</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-lawsuit-dow-enlist-duo-2323372668.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-lawsuit-dow-enlist-duo-2323372668.html</a></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/pesticides-un-report-2307662827.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/pesticides-un-report-2307662827.html</a></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The chronic overuse of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">pesticides</a> across the world has caused "catastrophic" harms to human health, human rights and global biodiversity, according to a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/017/85/PDF/G1701785.pdf?OpenElement" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">report</a> presented to the United Nations human rights council Wednesday.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The UN-solicited study on toxic chemical impacts to global food sources criticizes <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">pesticide manufacturers</a>' "systematic denial" of the broad harms caused by their products and calls for a transition to healthier farming methods that move away from the current dependence on pesticides.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"This report vividly reveals the harms pesticide manufacturers have caused by promoting the myth that their toxic chemicals are necessary to feed the world," said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Center for Biological Diversity</a>. "As this report recommends, we must move away from the industry-driven addiction to pesticides that is poisoning farmworkers, contaminating our water and wildlife and causing long-term human health problems."</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report is part of a growing body of evidence detailing the harms caused by the overuse and under-regulation of pesticides. For example, a <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/nplants20178" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">study</a> published last week in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nplants/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><em>Nature Plants</em></a> found pesticide use could be heavily reduced in most situations without an impact to crop yield.
</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The UN report finds that poverty, coupled with inequitable production and distribution systems, are two of the major barriers to feeding the hungry.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/pesticides-organic-farming-2292594453.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/pesticides-organic-farming-2292594453.html</a></p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-epa-2290270946.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-epa-2290270946.html</a></p><p class="print-title">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ormer U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official Jess Rowland may have to testify over claims that he covered up evidence that</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glyphosate" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">glyphosate</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the main ingredient in</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Monsanto</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'s top-selling herbicide Roundup, could cause cancer.</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A federal judge said at a hearing in San Francisco on Monday that he is likely to grant the deposition of Rowland, a key figure named in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-2261203098.html" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">multi-district cancer lawsuits</a> alleging that Monsanto failed to warn about the cancer risks associated with exposure to glyphosate.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"My reaction is when you consider the relevance of the EPA's reports, and you consider their relevance to this litigation, it seems appropriate to take Jess Rowland's deposition," U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said at the hearing.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The plaintiffs' lawyers argue that Rowland had a "highly suspicious" relationship with Monsanto, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/monsanto-cancer-suits-turn-to-alleged-whitewash-by-epa-official" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Bloomberg</a> reported.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rowland, a former deputy division director at the EPA, chaired the agency's Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC). The CARC determined that glyphosate was "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans," which differs from the International Agency for Research on Cancer <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">conclusion</a> that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. Rowland left the agency just days after a copy of <a href="http://src.bna.com/eAi" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">the CARC report</a> was leaked to the press in May 2016.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This new development in the case—<em>Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2741, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco)—</em>is yet another <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-pcb-lawsuits-2268543132.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">litigious nightmare</a> for the St. Louis-based agrochemical giant, which is pending acquisition from Bayer AG. Incidentally, the German pharmaceutical company <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-22/bayer-fourth-quarter-profit-beats-estimates-helped-by-drugs" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">recently signaled</a> that its <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/genetically-engineered-grass-2199240489.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">$66 billion mega-merger</a> with Monsanto may face delays amid regulatory concerns.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.alternet.org/documentaries/noam-chomsky-stars-new-documentary-about-major-risks-humanity-faces-pesticides">http://www.alternet.org/documentaries/noam-chomsky-stars-new-documentary-about-major-risks-humanity-faces-pesticides</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;">American companies are legally permitted to manufacture dangerous pesticides for export—even after the chemicals have been banned in the U.S.? There are policies that create a "circle of poison"; toxic chemicals traveling around the world, ironically imported back to the U.S. through foodstuffs we eat. </p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><em>Circle of Poison</em>, a groundbreaking <a href="http://www.circleofpoisonfilm.com/" style="text-decoration: none;">documentary</a> by Nick Capezzera, Evan Mascagni and Shannon Post, unveils the unrelenting corruption of this cycle. The film features interviews with Jimmy Carter, Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, Patrick Leahy, and the Dalai Lama, as well as footage from India, Mexico, Argentina, Bhutan, and the United States, in order to illustrate the global impact of the pesticide trade and how communities are fighting back.</p><p></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/prenatal-pesticide-exposure-linked-lower-iqs-study">http://www.alternet.org/food/prenatal-pesticide-exposure-linked-lower-iqs-study</a></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-dupont-weed-killer-gmo-crops-1910876805.html</p><p class="print-title">8/17</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the biggest concerns about the cultivation of genetically modified crops is the rise of<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/search/?q=superweeds" style="text-decoration: none;">superweeds</a> caused by the overuse of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/search/?q=glyphosate" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">glyphosate</a>, the main ingredient in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/search/?q=Monsanto" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Monsanto</a>'s best-selling Roundup and other pesticides.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So, in an effort to beat back these herbicide-defying weeds, Monsanto and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/search/?q=DuPont" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">DuPont</a> have agreed to sell an even stronger weed killer to go with their genetically modified seeds.</p><div class="share-tab-img share-buttons share-trigger" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; overflow: hidden;"><div class="share-media-panel"><p class="print-title">Glyphosate is the world's most widely applied herbicide and has faced major controversy ever since the World Health Organization's International Agency cancer research arm linked the compound to cancer.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The rival seed and agrichemical companies have signed a multi-year supply agreement for the weed killer dicamba in the U.S. and Canada, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-du-pont-herbicide-idUSKCN0ZN25J" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Reuters</a> reported. The new product, DuPont FeXapan herbicide plus VaporGrip Technology, will go with Monsanto's new Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans which are genetically altered to resist dicamba and glyphosate.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It's clear that Monsanto has high hopes for its latest project. According to Reuters, the company invested more than $1 billion in a dicamba production facility in Luling, Louisiana, to meet the demand it predicts. Xtend soybeans were planted on 1 million acres in the U.S. this year, but the company expects 15 million acres to be planted with the GMO soybeans next season and 55 million acres by 2019.
</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Monsanto's bet on dicamba represents a step away from the company's reliance on its "bread-and-butter glyphosate herbicide business," <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/monsanto-dicamba-idUSL1N0ZA1XN20150624" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Reuters noted</a> last year. Glyphosate, the world's <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsantos-glyphosate-most-heavily-used-weed-killer-in-history-1882164311.html" style="text-decoration: none;">most widely applied</a> herbicide, has faced major controversy ever since the World Health Organization's International Agency cancer research arm <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">linked</a> the compound to cancer last year. Glyphosate's future in the Europe Union is also <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-given-last-minute-approval-despite-failure-to-secure-majori-1896669413.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">uncertain</a>, as a number of countries have expressed fears over the safety of the product....</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></p><p class="print-title">BASF fungi bees</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.globalpossibilities.org/this-is-your-brain-on-fungicides/">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/this-is-your-brain-on-fungicides/</a>
</p><p class="print-title">
</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-releases-draft-biological-evaluations-three-chemicals-impacts-endangered-species" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">released</a> its first-ever analysis on the effects of three common <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=pesticides" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">pesticides</a>—<a href="https://www.epa.gov/endangered-species/biological-evaluation-chapters-chlorpyrifos" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">chlorpyrifos</a>, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/endangered-species/biological-evaluation-chapters-diazinon" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">diazinon</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/endangered-species/biological-evaluation-chapters-malathion" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">malathion</a>—on endangered and threatened species and designated critical habitat nationwide. The resounding conclusion? Pesticides are terrible for them.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the report, <b>malathion and chlorpyrifos harms an astounding 97 percent of the 1,782 animals and plants protected under the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=Endangered+Species+Act" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Endangered Species Act</a>. Diazinon harms 79 percent.</b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Malathion is often used on fruit, vegetables and plants for pests, as well tick removal on pets. Chlorpyrifos is used to exterminate termites, mosquitoes and roundworms. Diazinon is used against cockroaches and ants.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The three chemicals species are “<a href="http://www.agri-pulse.com/Further-review-on-species-effects-needed-for-three-pesticides-04062016.asp" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">likely to adversely affect</a>” these species, the EPA found.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“For the first time in history, we finally have data showing just how catastrophically bad these pesticides are for endangered species—from birds and frogs to fish and plants,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a <a href="http://biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/pesticides-04-07-2016.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">statement</a>. “These dangerous pesticides have been used without proper analysis for decades, and now’s the time to take this new information and create common-sense measures to protect plants, animals and people from these chemicals.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The EPA has allowed chemical companies to register more than 16,000 pesticides without properly considering their impacts. That has to stop,” Burd said. “These evaluations are a huge step forward for the EPA. Now that we know the magnitude of danger these pesticides pose, it’s clear we need to take action. The EPA must move forward with analyses for other dangerous pesticides and also quickly implement on-the-ground efforts to prevent the extinction of rare and unique wildlife from these pesticides.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Organophosphates aren’t just bad for wildlife, a number of studies have linked them to human health risks.</b> According to the Center for Biological Diversity:</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Organophosphates are widely used in agriculture on crops such as corn, cotton, watermelon and wheat. A recent study at the University of California at Berkeley <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309544/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">found</a> that an astonishing <i style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">87 percent</i> of umbilical-cord blood samples tested had detectable levels of an organophosphate. Early childhood exposure to <b>organophosphates has been <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/05/17/peds.2009-3058.abstract" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">linked to</a> cognitive delay and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Organophosphates were also used as nerve agents in chemical warfare and have been linked to Gulf War syndrome, which causes fatigue, headaches, skin problems and breathing disorders.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Additionally, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer also <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">said</a> last March that malathion and diazinon are classified as <b>“probably carcinogenic to humans.”</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Center for Biological Diversity, as well as a number of farmworker, child-safety and environmental advocacy groups, sent a <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/Comment_Letter-sent_to_EPA.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">letter</a> to the EPA last month urging it to ban several organophosphate pesticides that are currently under review.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“These pesticides pose unacceptably high risks to children, workers and wildlife, and really can’t be used safely,” Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “In this letter farmworkers, child-safety and consumer advocates have spoken with one voice, asking the EPA to ban these relics of our toxic past.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The EPA has released the analysis for <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0850-0855" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">public comment</a>. Following the comment period, the EPA will finalize the assessment. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service will use the analyses and data from the biological evaluations in their final “Biological Opinions” for each of the three chemicals, the EPA said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 25.2px;">http://ecowatch.com/2016/04/09/endangered-species-threatened-pesticides/</span></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/some-california-residents-exposed-multiple-airborne-pesticides-says-new-study
</p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/some-california-residents-exposed-multiple-airborne-pesticides-says-new-study">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/some-california-residents-exposed-multiple-airborne-pesticides-says-new-study</a>
</p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="=
http://www.alternet.org/environment/exposing-epas-dark-side
enlist duo, slow
">http://www.alternet.org/environment/exposing-epas-dark-side</a></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">enlist duo, slow</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday <a href="http://bit.ly/1Xfpv0g" style="text-decoration: none;">revoked the registration</a> of the toxic herbicide “Enlist Duo,” which contains the cancer causing 2,4-D and is central to future uses of genetically engineered (GE) crops in chemical-intensive agriculture.</p><p><span id="amzn_assoc_ad_div_sns1_0" style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The marketing of this chemical in genetically engineered agriculture has become integral to the chemical industry’s response to weed resistance to the widely used herbicide glyphosate (Roundup), also identified as cancer causing this year by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-score-huge-victory-epa-revokes-registration-toxic-pesticide-central-ge-crops">http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-score-huge-victory-epa-revokes-registration-toxic-pesticide-central-ge-crops</a></span></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/endosulfan-has-killed-many-epa-slow-ban-its-use">http://www.alternet.org/environment/endosulfan-has-killed-many-epa-slow-ban-its-use</a></p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/endosulfan-has-killed-many-epa-slow-ban-its-use" class="external text" title="http://www.alternet.org/environment/endosulfan-has-killed-many-epa-slow-ban-its-use" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; line-height: 16.704px; background: url(" http="http" www.ic.ucsc.edu="www.ic.ucsc.edu" college8core="college8core" c8wiki="c8wiki" skins="skins" monobook="monobook" external.png="external.png" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">DDT’s cousin</a><span style="line-height: 16.704px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: Endosulfan, like DDT, belongs to the organochlorine family, an early generation of farm chemicals that are notably persistent in the environment and animal tissue. It has been used in the United States since 1954 to kill mites and insects. "If humans are exposed to it,” he said, “it can cause serious health impacts.” 11/15.</span></p><div></div><div>
</div><div>hawaii</div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/more-100-monsanto-employees-crashed-my-presentation-ge-crops-and-pesticides">http://www.alternet.org/environment/more-100-monsanto-employees-crashed-my-presentation-ge-crops-and-pesticides</a></div><div>
</div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On October 14, I presented the findings of the Center for Food Safety's <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/reports/3901/pesticides-in-paradise-hawaiis-health-and-environment-at-risk" target="blank"><em>Pes</em><em>ticides in Paradise</em></a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> report on the island of Moloka‘i in Hawai'i. At around 5:45 PM, about 15 minutes before the presentation was going to start, more than 100 Monsanto employees, all dressed in neon yellow shirts, arrived. </p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As I stared at the long line of workers, men and women of all colors and ages and sizes, entering the building, there was a moment when I wanted to walk away. I walked to the bathroom and sat with my face in my hands. I am not brave enough for this confrontation. I am not the right person to deliver this message. I am not strong enough for the yelling and fighting that will likely ensue. Deep breaths. Air punches.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I re-entered the main hall, now crowded with community members, workers. The island is so small that I already recognized faces from the four days I had spent here. My team gave me half horrified, half encouraging looks as I paced the front of the hall. With a few deep breaths and a nod from the few friends we had in the audience, I began. <a href="https://youtu.be/d2iOTwmiN_c" target="blank">(You can watch the full video, un-edited here)</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span>.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The presentation walks the audience through <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/key-findings_2nd_ed_61347.pdf" target="blank">data on pesticides and genetically engineered crops in Hawai‘i and the medical literature that examines the human health and environmental impacts of pesticide exposure</a><span class="print-footnote">[5]</span>, on pregnant women, children, and farm workers, who are particularly vulnerable to adverse health effects.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And herein lies the greatest challenge of that night and the greatest opportunity. Although seemingly there to intimidate me and oppose our message, these 100+ people are the most at risk from the growing GE seed industry in our state.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Workers exposed to restricted use pesticides have higher rates of chronic diseases such as bladder and colon cancer<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn1" title="">[i]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span>, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn2" title="">[ii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn3" title="">[iii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn4" title="">[iv]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn5" title="">[v]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span>, Parkinson’s disease<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn6" title="">[vi]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn7" title="">[vii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn8" title="">[viii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> ,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn9" title="">[ix]</a><span class="print-footnote">[14]</span>, and depression<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn10" title="">[x]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> ,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn11" title="">[xi]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn12" title="">[xii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span>. Children who live in and around agricultural operations like those owned by Monsanto and Dow are vulnerable to chronic, low-level exposure to restricted used pesticides that drift from GE test fields on a weekly basis. In utero and early life, children are at a risk of neurodevelopmental disabilities like autism and ADHD<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn13" title="">[xiii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn14" title="">[xiv]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn15" title="">[xv]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn16" title="">[xvi]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span>, leukemia<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn17" title="">[xvii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn18" title="">[xviii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn19" title="">[xix]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span>, and asthma<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn20" title="">[xx]</a><span class="print-footnote">[25]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn21" title="">[xxi]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[26]</span>,<a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4098/last-week-on-molokai#edn22" title="">[xxii]</a> <span class="print-footnote">[27]</span>.</p></div><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/14/epa-pesticide-overturned</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A federal court has overturned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/07/epa-approves-another-pesticide-toxic-bees/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">approval of sulfoxaflor</a>, a pesticide linked to the <a href="http://www.takepart.com/feature/2014/06/20/what-is-killing-bees" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">mass die-off of honeybees</a> that pollinate a third of the world’s food supply.</p><p class="tp-ad-processed" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The three-judge panel said the EPA <a href="http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/updates/2013/sulfoxaflor-decision.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">green-lit sulfoxaflor</a> even though initial studies showed the product was <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/04/obama-save-bees-toxic-insecticides/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">highly toxic to pollinators</a> such as <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/28/if-all-bees-died-what-would-happen/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">bees</a>. The chemical compound belongs to a class of insecticides, known as <a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/06/24/are-neonicotinoids-new-ddt-bees-and-other-wildlife" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">neonicotinoids</a>, that scientific studies have implicated in bee deaths.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Because the EPA’s decision to unconditionally register sulfoxaflor was based on flawed and limited data, we conclude that the unconditional approval was not supported by substantial evidence,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel wrote in its opinion.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In her opinion, Judge Mary M. Schroeder <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/sulfoxaflor-opinion.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">wrote</a> that the EPA had initially decided to conditionally approve the chemical but ordered more studies done to better understand the effects the systemic insecticide would have on bees.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“A few months later, however, the EPA <a href="http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/updates/2013/sulfoxaflor-decision.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">unconditionally registered</a> the insecticides with certain mitigation measures and a lowering of the maximum application rate,” Schroeder wrote. “It did so without obtaining any further studies.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The product, sold in the U.S. as Transform or Closer, must be <a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/02/big-box-stores-crunchy-organic-shops-bee-killing-pesticides-are-getting-boot" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">pulled from store shelves</a> by Oct. 18.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gregory Loarie, lead counsel for environmental group Earthjustice, which represented beekeepers and beekeeping groups in the case, said the ruling could lead to reviews of other EPA-approved pesticides.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The EPA rarely, if ever, has reliable information regarding the impact that insecticides have on<a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=honeybees" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">honeybee</a> colonies writ large, as opposed to individual, adult worker bees,” Loarie said in an email. “With the findings in this case, EPA should move quickly to re-examine other registrations for possible flawed and limited data.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sulfoxaflor, created by Indianapolis-based <a href="http://newsroom.dowagro.com/press-release/dow-agrosciences-receives-us-epa-registration-sulfoxaflor" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Dow AgroSciences</a>, is a systemic insecticide. When it’s sprayed on soybean, cotton, citrus, fruit and vegetable crops, it kills bugs on contact and is also absorbed into the plant’s flowers, stems and roots. When insects ingest any part of the plant, they die too.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Paul Towers, spokesperson for advocacy group Pesticide Action Network, said that because sulfoxaflor was only approved in 2013, it hasn’t been widely used. “The prospect of greater use loomed, especially as other neonicotinoids are under increased scrutiny and pressure for phase-out,” Towers said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That phase-out already has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-banned-europe" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">started in Europe</a>; EU member nations banned three neonicotinoids in 2013 for two years after the chemicals were linked to the dramatic decline in bee populations there.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This is the classic pesticide industry shell game,” Towers said. “As more science underscores the harms of a pesticide, they shift to newer, less studied products. And it takes regulators years to catch up.”</p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">815</p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/pesticides-paradise-hawaiis-spike-birth-defects-puts-focus-gm-crops">http://www.alternet.org/food/pesticides-paradise-hawaiis-spike-birth-defects-puts-focus-gm-crops</a></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/16/france-bans-monsantos-roundup-as-environmental-groups-push-who-for-stronger-safety-standards/</p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title"><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chalk up another win for the little guy. A handful of residents of Kauai’s Waimea community prevailed in court over biotech giant DuPont-Pioneer earlier this month. Citing extensive, harmful dust generated by DuPont’s seed operations, a </span><a href="http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20150508_Jury_awards_500K_to_dustweary_residents_on_Kauai.html?id=303164711" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">jury awarded</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> 15 residents $500,000 in damages.</span></p><p class="print-title"></p><p class="print-title">http://ecowatch.com/2015/04/10/lowes-neonicotinoid-pesticides</p><p class="print-title">==</p><p class="print-title">4/15</p><p class="print-title"><span style="line-height: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Subject: I just signed this petition to ban toxic pesticides -- will you?
I just signed a petition calling on the EPA to ban a toxic, brain-harming pesticide called chlorpyrifos from agricultural use. It's one of the most widely used pesticides in America, but has proven to be neurotoxic to humans.
Join me and sign this petition:
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/EPA_Chlorpyrifos?sp_ref=116257964.4.12655.e.51308.2&referring_akid=.6643550.uY9okC&source=mailto_sp </span></p><p class="print-title">==</p><div class="print-content"><div id="node-1033888" class="node node-story view-mode-print clearfix" about="/food/why-did-govt-give-big-thumbs-notorious-monsanto-pesticide-we-now-believe-causes-cancer" typeof="sioc:Item foaf:Document" style="position: relative;"><div class="the_body body_environment clearfix"><p>NEW YORK (March 25, 2015) — The World Health Organization, the U.N.'s public health agency, said on Friday that glyphosate, an herbicide widely used on genetically modified crops such as corn and soybeans, likely causes cancer.</p><p>Released by the WHO's cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf" target="blank">report</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> presents the findings of 17 biochemists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists and environmental scientists from 11 countries, who evaluated the carcinogenicity of glyphosate as well as the insecticides tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion and diazinon. A <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/fulltext" target="blank">summary of the evaluation</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span> has been published online by the<em> Lancet Oncology</em>.</p><p>Glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Monsanto's popular home and garden weed killer Roundup, was classified by IARC as "probably carcinogenic to humans." The scientists found that the chemical "induced DNA and chromosomal damage in mammals, and in human and animal cells in vitro." They concluded that there was "sufficient evidence" that the herbicide causes cancer in non-human animals and "limited evidence" that it also causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans.</p><p>The agency, headquartered in Lyon, France, said glyphosate "has been detected in the air during spraying, in water and in food," noting that primary exposure to the chemical is through diet, home use and living near sprayed areas.</p><p>The researchers reviewed studies on the effect of the herbicide on healthy male workers in the agricultural and forestry sectors since 2001. They also highlighted a study of community residents that reported "increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage after glyphosate formulations were sprayed nearby."</p><p>Glyphosate is part of a group of biochemicals called organophosphates, which includes insecticides and nerve agents like sarin that irreversibly inactivate acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme essential for nervous system functionality in insects, humans and many other animals.</p><p><a href="http://news.monsanto.com/news/monsanto-disagrees-iarc-classification-glyphosate" target="blank">Monsanto released a statement Friday</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span> disagreeing with IARC's findings.</p><p>"There is no new research or data that was used; the most relevant, scientific data was excluded from review; the conclusion is not supported by scientific data; and there is no link between glyphosate and an increase in cancer when the full data set is included in a rigorous review," said Philip Miller, Monsanto’s vice president of global regulatory affairs. "We don’t know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe."</p><p>On Monday, Monsanto’s chief technology officer Robert Fraley followed up with an encapsulation of the biotech giant's feelings on the matter: "<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-bites-back-at-glyphosate-findings-1427147273" target="blank">We are outraged with this assessment</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span>."</p><p><strong>Evidence of health risks mounting; so is revenue</strong></p><p>While glyphosate may be most known among consumers for being the key ingredient in Roundup, the IARC report noted that it is also used in <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/abstract" target="blank">more than 750</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span> different agricultural, industrial and residential products.</p><p>Its wide range of applications includes weed control in forests, rivers, lakes, parks, grass pastures, lawns, turf, gardens, greenhouses, fruit orchards, vineyards and olive groves. In the U.S., its largest agricultural use is on hay/pasture, soybeans and field corn. According to IARC, glyphosate "currently has the highest global production volume of all herbicides."</p><p>The herbicidal properties of glyphosate were first discovered and marketed by Monsanto in 1974. In 2001, it became the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/usage2007_3.htm#3_7" target="blank">most used pesticide</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> in the U.S. agricultural market and the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/usage2007_3.htm#3_7" target="blank">second most used</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> pesticide in the home and garden market.</p><p>While the debate surrounding its effect on health continues, sales of glyphosate are chugging right along, no doubt aided by Monsanto's release of Roundup Ready genetically modified crops that are resistant to the herbicide. In 2012, the global glyphosate market was valued at $5.46 billion. By 2019, it is expected to swell to $8.79 billion.</p><p>While glyphosate-driven revenues continue to grow, so does evidence of the chemical's health risks. The IARC assessment builds on existing studies indicating the potential health hazards of glyphosate, including cancer and renal disease.</p><p>A 2013 paper published in the journal <em>Food and Chemical Toxicology</em> found that glyphosate induces the growth of human breast cancer cells. The environmental toxicologists at Bangkok's Chulabhorn Graduate Institute who conducted the study concluded "<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170" target="blank">low and environmentally</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span> relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity."</p><p>In February 2014, the <em>International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health</em> published a paper by researchers from Rajarata University in Sri Lanka and California State University in Long Beach that investigated the potential role of glyphosate in Sri Lanka's chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemic. Though glyphosate was ruled out as the lone causative factor, the authors said that when mixed with hard water or metals like arsenic and cadmium, the chemical "<a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125" target="blank">seems to have</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span> acquired the ability to destroy the renal tissues of thousands of farmers."</p><p>One thing is certain: It will be decades before scientists fully comprehend all the things that can go wrong when humans and wildlife are exposed to glyphosate. A 2014 study published in the<em> Journal of Organic Systems</em> found a <a href="http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/study-shows-dramatic-correlation-between-gmos-and-22-diseases" target="blank">stunning correlation</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span> between the rise of glyphosate-sprayed GMO crops and 22 diseases.</p><p><strong>No agreement</strong></p><p>IARC's conclusions contradict the official stance of the EPA, which maintains that glyphosate is safe. The agency originally classified it as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" in 1985, based on a study in which mice developed tumors after exposure. Then in 1991, the EPA <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf" target="blank">changed its classification</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> to "evidence of non-carcinogenicity" after a re-evaluation of that study.</p><p>"EPA's worst case risk assessment of glyphosate's many registered food uses concludes that human dietary exposure and risk are minimal," the agency said in a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/REDs/factsheets/0178fact.pdf" target="blank">1993 glyphosate fact sheet</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span>. "Existing and proposed tolerances have been reassessed, and no significant changes are needed to protect the public."</p><p>Some governments aren't waiting for another study. In September 2013, the legislature of <a href="http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/09/19/el-salvador-government-bans-roundup-over-deadly-kidney-disease/#.VRHTG1xIC9o" target="blank">El Salvador</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> approved a glyphosate ban, following the deaths of thousands of agricultural workers along Central America's Pacific Coast.</p><p>It only took a few weeks after the 2014 glyphosate paper on Sri Lanka's CKD epidemic was published for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/03/13/14418/sri-lanka-bans-monsanto-herbicide-citing-potential-link-deadly-kidney-disease" target="blank">Sri Lanka</a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span> to ban glyphosate.</p><p>Also last year, the <a href="http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/04/04/dutch-parliament-bans-glyphosate-herbicides-non-commercial-use/#.VRHHWFxIC9p" target="blank">Dutch parliament</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> announced a federal ban on non-commercial sales of glyphosate that went into effect in 2015.</p><p>"In garden centers Roundup is promoted as harmless, but unsuspecting customers have no idea what the risks of this product are," said Dutch MP Esther Ouwehand, who brought the motion to Holland's legislative body. "Especially children are sensitive to toxic substances and should therefore not be exposed to it."</p><p><strong>Monsanto and EPA: Perfect together, not for kids</strong></p><p>So Dutch kids gained some protection from glyphosate. What about in the United States?</p><p>In February 2012, the <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab%5CSABPRODUCT.NSF/2B686066C751F34A852579A4007023C2/$File/FY2013_BIB.pdf" target="blank">EPA said</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span> in its Budget in Brief that it would "continue to emphasize the protection of potentially sensitive groups, such as children," asserting that the federal pesticide program would "minimize exposure to pesticides [and] maintain a safe and affordable food supply."</p><p>Just three months later, on May 2, 2012, <a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#%21docketDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132" target="blank">Monsanto challenged</a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span> this mandate and filed a petition with the EPA to increase the allowable amount of glyphosate on oilseed, sunflowers and a number of fruits and vegetables, including grapes, cranberries, strawberries, carrots, sweet potatoes and citrus fruits.</p><p>Environmental and public health activists rallied against the request. The nonprofit <a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-7668" target="blank">Food & Water Watch</a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> responded with its own petition with more than 33,000 signatures, saying: "The EPA is failing to protect human health and the environment by neglecting to regulate the excessive use of herbicides; instead, it is just changing its own rules to allow the irresponsible and potentially dangerous applications to continue. Tolerance levels are put in place to protect human health—not the biotech industry."</p><p>One might think that, given the research pointing to health problems tied to glyphosate exposure, the EPA would take the time necessary to perform an extensive and thorough evaluation before amending the law. But that didn’t happen.</p><p>Instead of increasing protections against glyphosate's potential negative health effects, the EPA went in the opposite direction. On May 1, 2013, it<a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-0009" target="blank">approved</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span> Monsanto's request to increase glyphosate tolerance levels, in effect letting more of the chemical enter the American food supply.</p><p>The coziness between the EPA and Monsanto is concerning. Just six weeks after the EPA's pro-Monsanto ruling, the Gulf of Mexico Program awarded<a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/C38ABBC4C09BC77D85257B87006C2AF5" target="blank">Monsanto</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span> with the First Place 2013 Gulf Guardian Award. This program—a non-regulatory consortium of state and federal government agencies and corporate representatives from the agricultural and fishing industries—is underwritten by, you guessed it—the EPA.</p><p>It is difficult to understand how Monsanto can be considered a "Gulf Guardian" considering the company's central role in the acidification of the Gulf: Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, the major cause of the more than 400 oceanic dead zones around the world, including the Gulf of Mexico, is <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/ten-ways-monsanto-and-big-ag-are-trying-kill-you-and-planet" target="blank">used on Monsanto's</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span> GMO corn more than any other crop.</p><p><strong>Timing is everything</strong></p><p>What is more puzzling is the fact that the agency awarded the glyphosate tolerance victory to Monsanto after only conducting preliminary reviews of the studies it was provided, blaming "the timing of the submission." In its <a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-0009" target="blank">ruling</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span>, the EPA said it "does not believe that further review will result in different conclusions concerning the neurotoxic or immunotoxic potential of glyphosate."</p><p>The EPA is hoping the American public will believe that an agency which earmarked <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab%5CSABPRODUCT.NSF/2B686066C751F34A852579A4007023C2/$File/FY2013_BIB.pdf" target="blank">$129 million</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span> of its 2013 fiscal year budget specifically to "support the EPA pesticide review processes" received a request from Monsanto to raise glyphosate tolerance levels and one year later, it was only able to conduct a preliminary review. </p><p>EPA also said it didn't believe that a further review would turn up different results. Isn't that another way of saying it's not absolutely sure?</p><p>The EPA also seems to have forgotten that a "different conclusion" is exactly what it came to back in 1991 when it changed its original 1985 glyphosate classification as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" to "evidence of non-carcinogenicity"—precisely because it made a re-evaluation of a single mouse study.</p><p>Clearly one year isn't enough time for EPA to conduct more than a preliminary review. Give it seven years and it can conduct a re-evaluation that brings it to a different conclusion. Seven years is also a long time to make sales of—and be exposed to—glyphosate.</p><p>The EPA has a fresh opportunity to reach yet another different conclusion, as the agency is <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-bites-back-at-glyphosate-findings-1427147273" target="blank">currently conducting</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span> a scheduled glyphosate review with its Canadian counterpart.</p><p>"We will give full consideration to the IARC study and all the other information we have before we reach a final decision," an EPA spokeswoman said.</p><p><strong>Side of glyphosate to go with that GMO corn?</strong></p><p>With Vermont and Maine passing <a href="http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/2014/11/29/vermont-gmo-fight-nears-court/19639519/" target="blank">America’s first mandatory</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span> GMO labeling laws in 2014 (and 22 other states considering it), consumers are increasingly concerned about how food is affected by herbicides like glyphosate. This concern may grow along with the increased use of glyphosate-resistant GMO crops.</p><p>But it's not just the potential negative health effects of glyphosate that are worrisome. Its massive use on U.S. crops has given rise to glyphosate-resistant "superweeds.</p><p>"<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/gmo-science-deniers-monsanto-and-the-usda_b_6904606.html" target="blank">More than half</a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span> of all U.S. farms have some Roundup resistant 'superweeds'...that now infest 70 million acres of U.S farmland, an area the size of Wyoming," said Andrew Kimball, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety.</p><p>"It's long past due that our government required real and rigorous science when regulating GE crops," he said. "It's time for them to say 'no' to these herbicide-promoting crops, and prevent the looming agronomic disaster they will inevitably bring with them."</p><p>With <a href="http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1314397" target="blank">GMOs present</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span> in 80% of processed foods in the U.S., Monsanto, as a primary producer of both GMO crop seeds and pesticides, has become a main target for environmental and public health activists. The average consumer also plays a central role in this rapidly evolving drama, not only by purchasing Roundup and foods sprayed with glyphosate, but also by ingesting the chemical.</p><p>In addition to glyphosate's links to cancer and other deadly diseases, it may also play a role in not-so-often-deadly ailment that has nevertheless become a major health concern in recent years: gluten sensitivity. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, has co-authored two papers proposing a<a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/meet-controversial-mit-scientist-who-claims-have-discovered-cause-gluten-sensitivty" target="blank">connection</a> <span class="print-footnote">[25]</span> between glyphosate and gluten sensitivity. She and her colleagues found that glyphosate binds to gluten, "causing the gluten to stay in the form that is known to be more allergenic."</p><p>Cancer, chronic kidney disease, gluten sensitivity and agronomic disaster. The complex glyphosate-fueled web Monsanto has spun over the world's food system for the past four decades may take another four decades for scientists to untangle. But while the debate on glyphosate's numerous potential health effects rages on, one thing is fairly certain: It is a part of most Americans' diets.</p><p>Ronnie Cummins, the national director of the nonprofit Organic Consumers Association, put it bluntly: "<a href="http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1314397" target="blank">If you eat</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span> foods that contain genetically modified organisms, you are consuming glyphosate."</p><div class="bio-new body_environment"><div class="author-bio"><div class="bottom-tools"><div class="left facebook">
</div></div></div></div><div id="atssh" style="width: 1px; height: 1px; visibility: hidden; position: absolute; top: -9999px; z-index: 100000; border: 0px !important;"><div class="print-footer" style="text-align: center;"><hr class="print-hr" style="border: 0px none; width: 1090px; background-color: rgb(158, 158, 158);" /><div class="print-source_url" style="font-size: small;"><strong>Source URL:</strong> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/why-did-govt-give-big-thumbs-notorious-monsanto-pesticide-we-now-believe-causes-cancer">http://www.alternet.org/food/why-did-govt-give-big-thumbs-notorious-monsanto-pesticide-we-now-believe-causes-cancer</a></div><div class="print-links" style="font-size: small;"><p><strong>Links:</strong>
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/reynard-loki
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf
[4] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/fulltext
[5] http://news.monsanto.com/news/monsanto-disagrees-iarc-classification-glyphosate
[6] http://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-bites-back-at-glyphosate-findings-1427147273
[7] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/abstract
[8] http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/usage2007_3.htm#3_7
[9] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170
[10] http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125
[11] http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/study-shows-dramatic-correlation-between-gmos-and-22-diseases
[12] http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/REDs/factsheets/0178fact.pdf
[13] http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/09/19/el-salvador-government-bans-roundup-over-deadly-kidney-disease/#.VRHTG1xIC9o
[14] http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/03/13/14418/sri-lanka-bans-monsanto-herbicide-citing-potential-link-deadly-kidney-disease
[15] http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/04/04/dutch-parliament-bans-glyphosate-herbicides-non-commercial-use/#.VRHHWFxIC9p
[16] http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab%5CSABPRODUCT.NSF/2B686066C751F34A852579A4007023C2/$File/FY2013_BIB.pdf
[17] http://www.regulations.gov/#%21docketDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132
[18] http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-7668
[19] http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-0009
[20] http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/C38ABBC4C09BC77D85257B87006C2AF5
[21] https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/ten-ways-monsanto-and-big-ag-are-trying-kill-you-and-planet
[22] http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/2014/11/29/vermont-gmo-fight-nears-court/19639519/
[23] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/gmo-science-deniers-monsanto-and-the-usda_b_6904606.html
[24] http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1314397
[25] http://www.alternet.org/food/meet-controversial-mit-scientist-who-claims-have-discovered-cause-gluten-sensitivty
[26] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Why Did Gov't Give Big Thumbs Up to Notorious Monsanto Pesticide We Now Believe Causes Cancer?
[27] http://www.alternet.org/
[28] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B</p></div>
<p class="print-title"><span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></p><p class="print-title"><span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">dow enlist duo epa nrdc suit monarch</span></p><p class="print-title"><a href="http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/10/17/natural-resources-defense-council-sues-epa-to-block-rollout-of-dow-enlist-duo-gmo-system/">http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/10/17/natural-resources-defense-council-sues-epa-to-block-rollout-of-dow-enlist-duo-gmo-system/<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></a></p><p class="print-title"><span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></span>
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2nd sci am not cited by entine? diep not specilaist</span>
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></p>
<h1 class="article-title" style="padding: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 0px; font-size: 32px; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; line-height: 36px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style=" font-size: large;">Beeing There: The Search for Pesticides’ Effect on Declining Bee Colonies Moves to the Fields</span></h1>
<div class="article-dek" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 7px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 22px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Scientists are gaining a more sophisticated understanding of the role of toxins in worldwide bee declines as lab studies of single insects are superseded by research on hives in the field</div>
<div class="article-author article-date" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; display: inline; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Oct 10, 2013<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="metaDataDivider" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 5px; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">|</span>By<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/author/francie-diep" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Francie Diep</a></div>
<p class="print-title"> </p>
<p>
<strong style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">...What do we know?</strong><br style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" />
The field studies entomologists repeatedly cite include ones that found different neonicotinoids<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/348" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">reduced the number of honeybee foragers</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that return to their hive as well as<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/351" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">reduced the population growth</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and queen bee production of bumblebee colonies. Another study found that the neonicotinoid imidacloprid, when applied in combination with another popular, non-neonicotinoid pesticide called lambda-cyhalothrin,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11585.html" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">increased the likelihood</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that bumblebee hives will fail. "I do think it is pretty clear that neonics interfere with bees' ability to forage effectively," says<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/126217" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">David Goulson</a>, a bumblebee researcher with the University of Sussex in the U.K. and an author of the bumblebee population growth study cited above. "For bumblebees, the evidence is overwhelming."
On the other hand, the evidence for neonicotinoids' effects on honeybees is less convincing. Honeybee hives are larger than those of bumblebees and may be better able to compensate for impaired individuals. "It might be very difficult to show the effect in honeybees," says<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/nigel-raine_b25f3a4a-fcda-4f53-874d-b58577f60b83.html" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Nigel Raine</a>, a Royal Holloway University of London entomologist who conducted the bumblebee field study suggesting that treated hives were more likely to fail.
Beyond neonicotinoids, research groups have started to find that other pesticides affect learning and population abundance in other bee species. At the 2013 International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy, held at The Pennsylvania State University in August, one study found blue orchard bees and alfalfa leaf-cutter bees had trouble finding their own nests after foraging in outdoor fields that researchers sprayed with the fungicides iprodione, pyraclostrobin and boscalid. (Researchers covered the fields with dense mesh cubes, six meters at a side, to keep the bees from foraging elsewhere.) Another study found apple orchards treated more heavily with any type of pesticides had severalfold fewer wild bee visitors than more lightly treated orchards.
<strong style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Applying research to regulations</strong><br style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" />
What does all this research mean for laws regarding pesticide use? Are any regulatory agencies using these studies as a basis for changing how many pesticides bees are exposed to in the real world?
In the European Union officials have used studies from universities as well as their own reviews as the basis of a two-year moratorium on many uses of three neonicotinoids called clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. The ban is controversial, even among researchers. It's also not clear what its fate will be, as neonicotinoid-makers<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2013/08/pesticidemakers-challenge-e.u.-neonicotinoid-ban-court" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Bayer CropScience and Syngenta Crop Protection have sued</a>against the ban, saying there's not enough evidence to merit regulatory change.
In the U.S. the Environmental Protection Agency depends mostly on its own six-year research plan to make regulatory decisions, agency spokesperson Catherine Milbourn wrote in an e-mail. The agency is reviewing six neonicotinoids: in addition to clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam it is studying acetamiprid, dinotefuran and thiacloprid. The review is part of a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/registration_review/" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">program designed to regularly reexamine</a>active ingredients in all pesticides approved for use in the U.S. The agency expects to finish its work by 2019. The reason it will take several years is to give pesticide companies the chance to acquire the data the EPA requested.
The EPA also considers studies by university researchers, but such studies often aren't designed to meet the agency's particular needs for addressing legal uncertainties for regulation, according to Milbourn. "We feel the studies that are currently underway at EPA's request are the most important for our regulatory purposes, since they were designed to answer specific uncertainties that we currently have and also to fully comply with federal laws and regulations," she wrote in an e-mail.
When asked for examples of how recent studies don't fill the bill, the agency declined to review others' work that way. Instead, Milbourn and other officials pointed to a<a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0543-0004" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">proposal from 2012</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that describes a method for regulators to determine pesticides' risks to honeybees in greater detail than the EPA had ever previously required before approving a pesticide....</p>
<p>
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/06/187735/pesticide-and-gmo-companies-spend-big-hawaii</span>
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 15.6px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Two multinational chemical companies—Dow Chemical and Syngenta—have asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for permission to allow them to ramp up the use of two pesticides that could have deadly consequences for bees.</span><br style="line-height: 15.6px; outline: currentcolor none medium; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />
<br style="line-height: 15.6px; outline: currentcolor none medium; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />
<span style="font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 15.6px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Honeybees, native bees and other pollinators are vital to maintaining our food supply—and a mass extinction could lead to huge crop failures.</span><br style="line-height: 15.6px; outline: currentcolor none medium; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />
<br style="line-height: 15.6px; outline: currentcolor none medium; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />
<span style="font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 15.6px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bee populations have plunged in recent years, and one big reason is the skyrocketing use of a new class of dangerous pesticides called neonicotinoids. The two pesticides in question—thiamethoxam and sulfoxaflor—are part of this group.</span><br style="line-height: 15.6px; outline: currentcolor none medium; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />
ator Week? It’s happening next week, June 16-22.
<b>And it’s brought to you, in part, by none other than <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/06/18/buzz-off-monsanto/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Monsanto</a> and <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/28/pr-tricks-pesticide-companies/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Bayer</a>.</b></p>
<p>
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</span>
http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/20/texas-emergency-use-herbicide-superweeds/
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</span>
<span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">crypto</span>
Concerned about the bees and the butterflies? Interested in celebrating National Pollin
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I</span><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">n 2007, the U.S. Senate designated a week in June as National Pollinator Week. Every year, the Secretary of Agriculture signs a National Pollinator Week </span><a href="http://pollinator.org/PDFs/NPW/2013/NationalPW2013.pdf" target="blank" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">proclamation</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. As the public has grown increasingly concerned about the </span><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/12/two-studies-address-pesticides-neonicatinoids-honeybees/" target="blank" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">link</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> between toxic chemicals and the </span><a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29307.cfm" target="blank" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">die-off</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of bees and </span><a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_30248.cfm" target="blank" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">monarch butterflies</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, National Pollinator Week has evolved into the </span><a href="http://pollinator.org/index.html" target="_blank" style="line-height: 25.2px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Pollinator Partnership</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The Pollinator Partnership is a nonprofit that describes itself as “the largest organization in the world dedicated exclusively to the protection and promotion of pollinators and their ecosystems.”</span>
Who <a href="http://pollinator.org/partners.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">supports</a> (i.e. funds) the Pollinator Partnership? Among others, Bayer and Monsanto—the very companies that are <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/01/bee-killing-pesticides-not-just-corn-fields" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">killing</a> pollinators with insecticides and genetically engineered crops.
It’s all part of a <a href="http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/f0/f/4656/FollowTheHoneyReport.pdf" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">well-documented</a>, well-funded (and shameless) public relations campaign by the pesticide industry to give the appearance of “caring” about the die-off of bees and butterflies, while diverting attention from the cause of those die-offs—highly profitable products made by Monsanto and Bayer.
Let’s take back National Pollinators Week. By spreading the truth about the connections between Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops, Bayer’s neonicotinoid insecticides and<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2012/05/09/report-weight-of-evidence-links-pesticides-to-colony-collapse-disorder/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Colony Collapse Disorder</a>.
In honor of Pollinator Week, share this article. And make plans to join a pollinators celebration that hasn’t been taken over by the agrichemical and biotech companies: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BeeAgainstMonsanto/events" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Bee Against Monsanto’s Global Swarm to Save the Bees</a> on Aug. 16.
Three ways Monsanto and Bayer are killing the bees:
<strong style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">1. Monsanto’s genetically engineered, herbicide-tolerant “<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/27/monsantos-roundup-found-in-75-of-air-and-rain-samples/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Roundup</a> Ready” crops</strong>
In 2000, scientists <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2000/may/28/gm.food" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">discovered</a> that genetically engineered traits in pollen can be transferred to bees though their digestive systems.
Researcher Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a leading German zoologist, released bees in a field of canola that had been genetically engineered to tolerate Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. He then fed the canola pollen to younger bees and observed that the bacteria in the guts of the young bees took on the traits of the canola’s modified genes.
Kaatz’s research predated Colony Collapse Disorder. That term, for the disappearance of bees from the hive, wasn’t coined by scientists until 2006.
With the mass death of bees yet to come, the discussion of Kaatz’s findings focused less on how Monsanto’s genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant “Roundup Ready” crops could harm bees, and more on his research’s suggestion that all types of bacteria could be contaminated by engineered genes, including those that live inside the human digestive system. Scientists warned that this would impact the bacteria’s vital role in helping the human body fight disease and aid digestion. Even worse, if the antibiotic-resistant gene used in genetically engineered crops crossed over to bacteria, it would cause human infections to become resistant to antibiotics.
The warnings were prescient. Kaatz’s work foreshadowed the correlation between the increase of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops in the human diet, and the rise of gastrointestinal disorders, immune diseases and antibiotic resistant infections.
Inadvertently, he also predicted how the increased use of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops would spur Colony Collapse Disorder in bees.
When Colony Collapse Disorder hit in 2006, others picked up where Kaatz left off.
In 2010, Terrence N. Ingram, a commercial beekeeper for 55 years, published an <a href="http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/Roundup-bees-zm0z10zarc.aspx" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">article</a> in 2010 in <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/Roundup-bees-zm0z10zarc.aspx" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Mother Earth News</a></em> that detailed the struggles he’d had since his neighbors started spraying Roundup on their genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant soy in 1996. He went from producing 15 tons of honey a year down to four.
“The bees never had a chance,” he wrote, “and all of the hives were dead before winter.”
In 2012, his bees disappeared while he was out of town. This time it wasn’t the neighbor’s herbicide sprays, it was the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDA). Under the pretense that Ingram’s hives were infected with <a href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=2882" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">foulbrood</a>, the agency destroyed them to prevent the spread of the disease.
Ingram believed IDA’s action had more to do with his 15 years of research into the effect of Roundup on honeybees. His suspicions were fueled by the fact that IDA’s theft included the hive of a queen bee that may have had a genetic resistance to Roundup.
“Knowing that Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture are in bed together, one has to wonder if Monsanto was behind the theft to ruin my research that may prove Roundup was, and is, killing honeybees,” Ingram <a href="http://www.pacc-news.com/5-2-12/heart_ingram5_2_12.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">told</a> local <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Prairie Advocate</em> reporter Tom Kocal.
Ingram hasn’t been able to get his bees back. But his hunch that Roundup was killing his bees is gathering support.
The suspicions voiced in Ingram’s 2010 <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mother Earth News</em> article were backed up with scientific evidence in 2013, when plant pathologist Dr. Don Huber published a <a href="http://www.gmoevidence.com/dr-huber-glyphosate-and-bee-colony-collapse-disorder-ccd/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">paper </a>written for the Center for Honeybee Research that names glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, as a possible cause of Colony Collapse Disorder.
According to Huber, “The exposure, physiological damage, and biological impact of glyphosate are consistent with all of the known conditions related to CCD. Of all of the potential individual factors implicated in CCD, glyphosate is the only compound extensively used worldwide where CCD occurs that impacts all of them.”
<strong style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">2. Monsanto’s insecticide-producing, genetically engineered “Bt” Crops</strong>
In research from <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/collapsing-colonies-are-gm-crops-killing-bees-a-473166.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">2001-2004</a>, Hans-Hinrich Kaatz conducted another investigation into the impact of Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops on honeybees. This time, he looked at <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_28279.cfm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">“Bt crops”</a> that have been genetically engineered to produce insecticide.
Kaatz found that genetically engineered Bt toxin didn’t kill healthy honeybees.
But as it turned out, not all the bees in his study were healthy. Just by chance, some of the bees were simultaneously exposed to a parasite along with the engineered toxin. In that group, there was a “significantly stronger decline in the number of bees.” According to Kaatz, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have “altered the surface of the bee’s intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry.”
Because of the harmful effect that the pollen of Bt crops could have on bees, in 2012, Poland’s Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki imposed a <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/04/poland-to-ban-monsantos-genetically-modified-maize/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">complete ban</a> on growing MON810 corn, a Bt crop that is the only genetically engineered crop grown in the EU.
<strong style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">3. Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds treated with Bayer’s insecticides</strong>
Looking at the science, it’s hard not to wonder if Monsanto isn’t killing bees intentionally. Especially when the company buys out a <a href="http://farmindustrynews.com/crop-protection/monsanto-buys-biological-research-firm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">bee research firm</a> and proposes use <a href="http://dreamingabeautifulworld.blogspot.com/2012/04/monsanto-genetically-engineering-bees.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">genetic engineering</a> to address Colony Collapse Disorder.
It’s bad enough that Monsanto produces genetically engineered crops that screw with honeybees’ gastrointestinal health, making them more susceptible to disease. But here’s the kicker: Monsanto also treats its genetically engineered seeds with a class of systemic insecticides that’s straight-up toxic to bees.
Insecticides known as <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/27/bee-killing-neonicotinoid-offer-no-benefit/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">neonicotinoids</a>, or “neonics” for short, are the smoking gun of Colony Collapse Disorder. Bee colonies began disappearing in the U.S. one year after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allowed these new insecticides on the market in 2004-2005.
A pile of <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/04/09/mystery-of-the-disappearing-bees-solved/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">studies</a> implicate <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29307.cfm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">neonics</a> in bee <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_30040.cfm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">die-offs</a>. Neonics are nerve poisons that disorient bees so they can’t make it back to the hive. They also trigger immune system failure, causing the bees to fall prey to opportunistic infections. Last year, the EU imposed a <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/food/archive/animal/liveanimals/bees/neonicotinoids_en.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">two-year ban</a> on all neonics.
Monsanto routinely treats its <a href="http://www.panna.org/blog/ge-corn-sick-honey-bees-whats-link" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">seeds</a> with neonics. Unlike insecticide sprays, neonic seed treatments cause the insecticide to spread through every cell of the plant as it grows. The insecticide is present and active in the plant’s pollen and nectar.
Take something that’s toxic to bees, get it to grow in plants’ pollen and nectar, and you’ve got a bee-killing machine.
Monsanto has a partner in this crime. It’s Bayer, the main manufacturer of neonic insecticides, as well as Syngenta, who together with Bayer controls the neonic market. They’re <a href="http://pollinator.org/partners.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">partners</a> in Pollinator.org, part of their massive public relations disinformation <a href="http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2014-04-follow-the-honey-7-ways-pesticide-companies-are-spinning-bee-crisis" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">campaign</a> to distract the public and policymakers from thinking that pesticides might have something to do with bee death and destruction.
We can’t let these companies control what the American public knows about Colony Collapse Disorder. Celebrate National Pollinator Week by exposing their crime and the cover-up. Share this article and make plans to join the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BeeAgainstMonsanto/events" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Global Swarm to Save the Bees</a> on Aug. 16.
<em style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Alexis Baden-Mayer is political director of the <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Organic Consumers Association</a>. Ronnie Cummins is national director of the Organic Consumers Association.</em>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/12/bee-killers-sponsor-national-pollinator-week-3-ways-they-kill/">http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/12/bee-killers-sponsor-national-pollinator-week-3-ways-they-kill/</a></span>
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<div class="byline environment"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.foe.org/news/blog">Friends of the Earth Blog</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[1]</span></span></span></span> / <em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/michele-simon">Michele Simon</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[2]</span></em></div>
<div class="story_comments"><span class="small"><span style=" font-size: large;">Follow the Honey: 7 Ways Pesticide Companies Are Spinning the Bee Crisis</span></span></div>
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<div class="story-date"><em><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-04-29T11:04:00-07:00">April 29, 2014</span></span></span></span> </em> | </div>
<p>If you like to eat, then you should care about what’s happening to bees. Did you know that two-thirds of our food crops require pollination — the very <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees">foods</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[3]</span> that we rely on for healthy eating — such as apples, berries and almonds, just to name a few. That’s why the serious declines in bee populations are getting more attention, with entire <a href="http://www.foe.org/beeaction">campaigns</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[4]</span> devoted to saving bees.
A strong and growing body of evidence points to exposure to a class of neurotoxic pesticides called neonicotinoids — the fastest-growing and most widely used class of synthetic pesticides — as a key contributing factor to bee declines.
The European Union banned the three most widely used neonicotinoids, based on strong science indicating that neonics can kill bees outright and make them more vulnerable to pests, pathogens and other stressors.
Enter the corporate spin doctors. As my <a href="http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/f0/f/4656/FollowTheHoneyReport.pdf">new report with Friends of the Earth</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[5]</span> details, three of the leading pesticide corporations — Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto — are engaged in a massive public relations disinformation campaign to distract the public and policymakers from thinking that pesticides might have something to do with bee death and destruction.
Big Tobacco honed these strategies for decades, stalling action that resulted in millions of preventable deaths. As <a href="http://www.bayer.com/en/annual-stockholders-meeting-2014.aspx">Bayer stockholders meet in Germany</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[6]</span> this week, this report shines a critical light on these destructive corporate practices.
Here are the seven tactics pesticide companies are using to spin the bee crisis:
<strong>1. Pretending to care – PR blitz</strong>
Big Tobacco perfected the art of self-serving public relations, to appear to care about the very problems your products cause and offer alleged solutions.
A key element of the pesticide industry’s PR strategy is to go on the offensive by creating an elaborate appearance of being “out in front” and taking a lead role in “saving bees”. For example, last year, Bayer launched its mobile “Bee Care Tour” at the Ag Issues Forum and Commodity Classic in Orlando, Florida. The<a href="http://www.beecaretour.bayer.com/"> tour continues in 2014</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[7]</span>, with stops at Oregon State University, Washington State University, University of California, Davis, South Dakota State University and Purdue University. In June, the Bee Care Tour will be on hand for National Pollinator Week in Washington, DC.
<strong>2. Creating distractions: Blame anything but pesticides</strong>
Big Tobacco was a master at inventing diversions, to ensure the public wouldn’t place blame where it belonged. The idea is to create uncertainty; as one tobacco industry executive <a href="http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/332506.html">famously put it</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[8]</span>: “Doubt is our product.”
Similarly, Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto have deployed a mix of PR tactics to divert attention away from neonicotinoids as a key contributor to bee declines. They have typically promoted a “multiple factors” argument that downplays and manufactures doubt about pesticides’ role, while emphasizing varroa mites, pathogens and bee forage as primary forces threatening bees.
For example, Helmut Schramm, head of Bayer CropScience Germany, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOj0u7CZHSY">explained</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[9]</span>: “It’s generally known that the varroa mite is the main enemy of the bee.” To further distract attention, Bayer has even erected a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/business/energy-environment/accused-of-harming-bees-bayer-researches-a-different-culprit.html?pagewanted=all">giant sculpture</a><span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[10]</span> of the varroa mite on a bee at its “Bee Care” Center in Germany. As the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/business/energy-environment/accused-of-harming-bees-bayer-researches-a-different-culprit.html?pagewanted=all">notes</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[10]</span>, “Conveniently, Bayer markets products to kill the mites too”.
<strong>3. Spinning science</strong>
Big Tobacco was so intent on twisting the science of smoking that they created “The Tobacco Institute” for the purpose of funding industry-friendly science.
All three companies — Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto — are strengthening their reach into the scientific community to enhance the credibility of their case that anything but pesticides are to blame for the honeybee collapse. Companies are funding scientific studies, cultivating alliances and strategic partnerships with farmers, beekeepers and agricultural organizations in order to bolster the legitimacy of their arguments and position themselves as “friends of the bees”.
<strong>4. Buying credibility: Putting experts on payrolls and co-opting groups</strong>
A related way that Big Tobacco distorts science is to pay fund researchers and co-opt professional organizations. Once again, pesticide companies are following that lead. For example, last June, Monsanto hosted a three-day “Bee Health Summit”, where the company greatly expanded its reach and influence in the scientific community.
At the summit, Monsanto <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2013/06/14/monsanto-launches-honey-bee-advisory.html">announced</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[11]</span> the formation of a Honey Bee Advisory Council, a strategic alliance comprised of Monsanto executives themselves along with others. Even with a friendly audience, a <a href="http://www.beeologics.com/wp-content/uploads/summit_analysis_summary_web.pdf">post-summit survey</a><span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[12]</span> found that only 14 percent of attendees felt pesticides were covered well or usefully.
Also, the <a href="http://www.britishbeekeeping.com/">British Bee Keepers Association</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[13]</span> has received significant funding from Bayer, Syngenta and other pesticide companies, an arrangement that some critics have <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bayer-funding-of-beekeepers-association-draws-controversy/">called</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[14]</span> a quid pro quo for the organization’s endorsement of insecticides as “bee-friendly.”
<strong>5. Blaming farmers</strong>
Another common tactic of Big Tobacco is to blame smokers who “should have known” that smoking was deadly. This shameless strategy is now being used by pesticide companies. For example, Bayer’s Bee Care <a href="http://beecare.bayer.com/bayer-bee-care/bayer-bee-care-program">website </a><span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[15]</span>emphasizes the “bee-responsible use” of its products and implies that any problem with neonics is because of improper use of its products by farmers and others.
Similarly, Syngenta <a href="http://www.syngenta.com/eame/plightofthebees/en/causes/Pages/misused-pesticides.aspx">claims</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[16]</span>: “The small number of instances of damage to bee health from these pesticides has come from the very rare occasions when farmers have used the product incorrectly (e.g. not followed label instructions).”
Syngenta even <a href="http://www.syngenta.com/eame/plightofthebees/en/bee-basics/Pages/BeeBasics.aspx">blames human fear</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[17]</span> for bee declines saying: “Many people are afraid of bees, wasps, hornets and many other flying insects. This fear converts, unfortunately, into a major health threat to bees, as too many people simply kill them if they fly into a home or too near to people”.
<strong>6. Targeting children</strong>
Just as Phillip Morris aimed the Joe Camel character at youth, now comes the children’s book from Bayer called “<a href="http://beecare.bayer.com/bilder/upload/dynamicContentFull/Publications/Toby_and_the_beeshfattqbf.pdf">Toby and the Bees</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[18]</span>” in which a friendly neighborhood beekeeper explains to young Toby that bees are getting sick but "not to worry" as it's just a problem with mites, and a special medicine will make the bees healthy — made by Bayer. In another attempt to mold young minds, The Bayer Bee Center is now <a href="http://www.bayercropscience.us/our-commitment/bee-health/bee-care-coloring-contest">promoting a coloring contest</a><span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[19]</span>dubbed “Color Me Bee-autifully” to “encourage students 12 and under to learn about bee health.”
<strong>7. Attacking regulators</strong>
The European Union is far ahead of the United States when it comes to taking action to protect bees from the harmful impacts of neonics. Just as Big Tobacco curries favor with policymakers, so does the pesticide industry.
Documents obtained by the <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/agribusiness/2013/04/pesticides-against-pollinators">Corporate Europe Observatory</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[20]</span> revealed that Syngenta, Bayer and the European Crop Protection Association (the pesticides makers’ lobbying group) were engaged in a private behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign that began as early as June 2012 to prevent a ban on neonicotinoids in the European Union. Through a series of letters, these companies made accusations with questionable scientific or factual backing in an effort to convince European Commissioners that neonicotinoids were not the problem.
Action needed now to save the bees and our food supply
Policymakers, the media and the public should be aware of these tobacco-style tactics, which were used for years to mislead and delay policy action for decades. We cannot afford the same delay in protecting bees from further harm.
It’s time for the United States government to follow the lead of the European Union to protect bees and our food. EPA should heed the growing body of science linking neonics to bee declines and limit the use of these pesticides. Congress <a href="http://action.foe.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13977">should pass the Saving America’s Pollinators Act</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[21]</span>. The White House should push both Congress and federal agencies to move quickly.
We must act before it’s too late. Our very food supply is at stake.</p>
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<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/bees" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">bees</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[22]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/pollination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">pollination</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[23]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/bee-deaths" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">bee deaths</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[24]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/massive-bee-die-offs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">massive bee die-offs</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[25]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/friends-earth" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">friends of the earth</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[26]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/colony-collapse-disorder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">colony collapse disorder</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[27]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/pesticides" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">pesticides</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[28]</span>,</div>
<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/industrial-agriculture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">industrial agriculture</a> <span class="print-footnote" style=" font-size: xx-small;">[29]</span></div>
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<div class="print-source_url" style=" text-align: left; font-size: small;"><strong>Source URL:</strong> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/follow-honey-7-ways-pesticide-companies-are-spinning-bee-crisis">http://www.alternet.org/food/follow-honey-7-ways-pesticide-companies-are-spinning-bee-crisis</a></div>
<p class="print-title" style=" text-align: left;"><span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</span></p>
<section class="article-body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">
<p style=" text-align: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A huge Florida citrus farm is being fined by state officials for poisoning millions of honeybees to death — but it’s not being fined very much.</span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Ben Hill Griffin Inc., one of the state’s largest growers and a <a href="http://www.floridasnatural.com/co-op/meet-the-growers/ben-hill-griffin-inc" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">supplier to Florida’s Natural orange juice</a>, is accused of illegally spraying pesticides (i.e., not following the directions on the labels) in ways that led to the deaths of bees kept by nearby beekeepers. One apiarist told officials that the farm used crop-dusters to douse its groves at least a dozen times — presumably to control Asian citrus psyllid, which spreads the <a href="http://grist.org/news/as-citrus-disease-spreads-government-cryopreserves-tree-roots/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">devastating citrus greening disease</a>. He estimated his losses at $240,000 worth of bees and reduced honey production. Another beekeeper says he is down $150,000.</b></span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>So how much is the Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Department fining the company? A paltry $1,500.</b></span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“That laughable penalty has environmentalists and beekeepers fuming,” <a href="http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/08/florida_citrus_grower_that_kil.php" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">reports the <i style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Miami New Times</i></a>.</span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span id="more-196191" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Every four days, they were spraying seven or eight different types of chemicals,” beekeeper Randall Foti <a href="http://www.theledger.com/article/20130828/NEWS/130829261/1410?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">told the <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Palm Beach Post</em></a>. “A $1,500 fine is not much of a deterrent.” Added beekeeper Barry Hart, “$1,500 ain’t nothing to the grove people.”</span></span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As the <i style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Post</i> reports, “The $1,500 state fine last week is believed to be the first time a Florida citrus grower was cited in connection with a bee kill.” But the fine could have been a lot bigger: “The maximum fine allowed by state law is $10,000 per occurrence,” a government spokesperson said.</span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/29/1234812/-Florida-citrus-grower-gets-slap-on-the-wrist-after-killing-millions-of-honeybees" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Daily Kos provides some helpful context</a>, pointing out that Ben Hill Griffin pulls in <a href="http://companies.findthecompany.com/l/322721/Ben-Hill-Griffin-Inc-in-Frostproof-FL" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">$126 million annually</a>.</span>
<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So the fine amounts to 0.001 percent of the company’s annual profits. Think that will teach ‘em a lesson?</span></p>
</section>
<section class="author-bio clear margin-bottom-x4" style="text-align: left; clear: both; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who <a href="https://twitter.com/johnupton" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">tweets</a>, posts articles to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/journalistupton" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Facebook</a>, and <a href="http://wonkonthewildlife.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">blogs about ecology</a>. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: <a href="mailto:johnupton@gmail.com" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px none; outline: currentcolor none 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">johnupton@gmail.com</a>.</span></section>
<p class="print-title" style=" text-align: left;"><span style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</span>
The European Union will limit the use of yet another bee-endangering insecticide, part of its <a href="http://grist.org/news/beleaguered-bees-catch-break-as-eu-bans-dangerous-pesticides/">efforts to protect pollinators</a> from agricultural poisons.
The use of fipronil, a nerve agent produced by German company BASF and widely applied by farmers to kill insect pests, will be outlawed on corn and sunflower seeds and fields across Europe. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/16/eu-pesticides-bees-idUSL6N0FM2H620130716" target="_blank">From Reuters</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style=" text-align: left;">The restrictions take effect from Dec. 31 but seeds which have already been treated can be sown until the end of February 2014.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="print-title" style=" text-align: left;">
<span style=" font-size: small;">===
</span>
<span style=" font-size: small;">rfk2: </span>
Crimes Against Nature Harper Collins 2004
c1 mess in Tx
1999 houston smoggiest city, #1 in childhood asthma bd air and water, drop to 49 on ecology spending p12
p13 sent most chemicals and toxins in air, co2 (10 % of US); most chem spills and made the most toxic waste</p>
<p>
shortly after inaugm tort reform emergency issue and appt's judges accordingly p13</p>
<p>
1995 <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">takings bill </span>make taxpayers pay for cleanup (overturns longtime legal notion that X can't damage y's proprty/commons
property w/o compensation Lincoln freeing slaves ? 14</p>
<p>
tx envro stocked w/ pesticide friendly anti union guy, ex monsanto lobbyist eXec
(chemical assoc), and another pro pest guy 14 TRNCC aka train wreck, eliminated
public input on permits and plant inspections, slashed budget by 20%, avg ozone
over larger areas 15
<span style=" font-size: small;">===</span>
</p>
<div style=" text-align: left;">By Clare Howard</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">100Reporters and Environmental Health News</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">To protect profits threatened by a lawsuit over its controversial herbicide atrazine, Syngenta Crop Protection launched an aggressive multi-million dollar campaign that included hiring a detective agency to investigate scientists on a federal advisory panel, looking into the personal life of a judge and commissioning a psychological profile of a leading scientist critical of atrazine.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The Switzerland-based pesticide manufacturer also routinely paid “third-party allies” to appear to be independent supporters, and kept a list of 130 people and groups it could recruit as experts without disclosing ties to the company.</div>
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</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Recently unsealed court documents reveal a corporate strategy to discredit critics and to strip plaintiffs from the class-action case. The company specifically targeted one of atrazine’s fiercest and most outspoken critics, Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, whose research suggests that atrazine feminizes male frogs.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The campaign is spelled out in hundreds of pages of memos, invoices and other documents from Illinois’ Madison County Circuit Court, that were initially sealed as part of a 2004 lawsuit filed by Holiday Shores Sanitary District. The new documents, along with an earlier tranche released in late 2011, open a window on the company’s strategy to defeat a lawsuit that, it maintained, could have effectively ended sales of atrazine in the United States.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The suit originally sought to force Syngenta to pay for the removal of atrazine from drinking water in Edwardsville, Ill., northeast of St. Louis, but ultimately expanded to include more than 1,000 water systems covering six states.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">For Syngenta, with $14.2 billion in sales last year, the stakes of the litigation were high. Atrazine has been popular with farmers since the 1950s because it is effective and economical in killing a broad spectrum of weeds. About 80 million pounds are used in the United States each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, most of it applied to corn in the Midwest. Three-quarters of all U.S. corn is treated with atrazine, but atrazine is also used on golf courses, Christmas tree lots and public lands.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">UC Berkeley Professor Dr. Tyrone Hayes was targeted by the company’s campaign to discredit him.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The herbicide has long stirred controversy at the EPA, which approved its use as recently as 2003 but plans to launch another registration review this summer.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Research has shown that atrazine is prone to run off fields and contaminate water supplies. It also drifts hundreds of miles by air from sites where it has been sprayed.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Relatively few studies have examined atrazine’s health effects using human subjects. It has been shown to act as an endocrine-disrupting chemical, meaning that it can block or mimic hormones, and some human studies have suggested that it may harm fetuses and reduce men’s sperm quality. An Indiana University study found that women who lived in areas with higher atrazine levels in water had children with higher rates of some genital birth defects (see sidebar).</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The Holiday Shores case grew into a class action lawsuit, ultimately settled in 2012,<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> after 8 years of litigation. While not admitting culpability, Syngenta agreed to pay $105 million last year toward filtration costs for more than 1,000 community water systems in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio.</span></div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Discovery documents from the lawsuit were unsealed by the Madison County Circuit Court in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by 100Reporters.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In a prepared statement, Syngenta defended its actions, describing the suit as an attempt to end atrazine sales in the United States. The demands of plaintiffs to receive reimbursement of their cleanup costs, the company wrote in an email, “would have effectively banned the use of this critical product that has been the backbone of safe weed control for more than 50 years.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The documents show that the company conducted research into the vulnerabilities of a judge, and Hayes’ personal life. Sherry Duvall Ford, Syngenta’s former head of communications, ranked strategies that Syngenta could use against Hayes in order of risk, according to her notes from Syngenta meetings in April 2005. One possibility: offering “to cut him in on unlimited research funds.” Another: Investigate his wife.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In her deposition, Ford read from a memo emailed to her colleagues indicating that Syngenta had hired a detective agency to investigate members of an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel [SAP] examining atrazine.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“I don’t think it would be helpful if it were generally known that we research SAP members,” Ford read. “The real good stuff I have kept for myself . . . It [sic.] protection for Janis on atrazine.” (Janis E. McFarland is a Syngenta employee involved with the public relations campaign.)</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Ford on EPA Advisory Panel (p. 6)</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Syngenta did not respond to questions about its use of a detective agency to investigate scientists on an EPA advisory panel or why it looked into the personal life of a judge. In response to a question about why it commissioned a psychiatric profile on Hayes, the company issued a statement saying: “In its defense of atrazine Syngenta focused on the science and the facts. And the scientific facts continue to make it clear that no one ever has been or ever could be exposed to enough atrazine in water to affect their health. Despite eight years of litigation, the plaintiffs were never able to show that atrazine ever caused any adverse health effects at levels to which people could be exposed in the real world. Most water systems involved in the litigation had never detected significant amounts of atrazine in their water.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Third-Party Allies</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">The company also secretly paid a stable of seemingly independent academics and other “experts” to extol the economic benefits of atrazine and downplay its environmental and health risks, without disclosing their financial ties to the company, according to memos and emails between Syngenta and the public relations firms it hired. At the same time, the company provided strict parameters for what these experts would say.</div>
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</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Don Coursey, Ameritech Professor of Public Policy at the University of Chicago collected $500 an hour from Syngenta to write economic analyses touting the necessity of atrazine, according to an April 25, 2006, email from Coursey to Ford. Syngenta supplied Coursey with the data he was to cite, edited his work and paid him to speak with newspapers, television and radio broadcasters about his reports, without revealing the nature of his arrangement with the corporation, according to Ford’s deposition. Coursey’s work, presented in 2010 at the National Press Club, was widely picked up as independent analysis by newspapers across the country. Coursey also is affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a libertarian nonprofit focused on environmental regulations.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">In one document dated 2005, Ford noted areas of vulnerabilities of a Madison County judge the corporation thought might be assigned to the case: “Not showing up for work. Personal conduct. Skybox from Tillery. Dating websites – pic in robes.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Stephen Tillery, whose firm, Korein Tillery, represented plaintiffs in the suit, said his firm had never given the judge a skybox. “I was never with the judge in a skybox,” Tillery said, adding, “He was not the judge in the case. They thought he might be, and they were looking for ways to disqualify him.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The allegation over the skybox was the basis of a formal complaint Syngenta filed against Tillery with the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The complaint was dismissed as without merit.</span></div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">At least four public relations firms were hired to work on the Syngenta campaign, according to the documents. The White House Writers Group, based in Washington, D.C., and Jayne Thompson & Associates, based in Chicago, were heavily involved. Invoices show that the White House Writers Group received more than $1.6 million in 2010 and 2011. Thompson is Illinois’ former first lady, wife of former Gov. Jim Thompson.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Tillery said, “They did everything they could with dirty tricks. The extent they went to was unprecedented.” He added that only one firm working on behalf of Syngenta, McDermott, Will & Emery of Chicago, did not engage in “dirty tricks.”</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes in the Crosshairs</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes, a leading atrazine researcher and critic, became a major target. His published research reported that exposure to atrazine chemically castrates male frogs and makes them viable females, able to produce eggs that can be fertilized.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes began his atrazine research in 1997 with a study funded by Novartis Agribusiness, one of two corporations that would later form Syngenta. Hayes said that when he got results Novartis did not expect or want, the corporation refused to allow him to publish them. He secured other funding, replicated his work and released the results: exposure to atrazine creates hermaphroditic frogs. That started an epic feud between the scientist and the corporation.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">The new documents show that the company commissioned a psychological profile of Hayes. In her notes taken during a 2005 meeting, Ford refers to Hayes as<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “paranoid schizo and narcissistic.”</span></div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Strategy to discredit Hayes (p. 2)</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Syngenta tracked Hayes’ speaking engagements and arranged for trained critics to attend each event, sometimes videotaping his remarks, according to a strategy proposed in 2006 memos by Jayne Thompson and later confirmed by Hayes. Syngenta explored the idea of purchasing “Tyrone Hayes” as a search word on the Internet and directing searches to its own marketing materials, but appeared to have ultimately decided against it.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes said he had been unaware that Syngenta had discussed<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> purchasing his name as an Internet search word.</span> “Given some of the things they did, that doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “This clearly shows they went beyond science and academia. It was all PR and tricks.”</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes readily admits he has “crossed the line” from dispassionate academic to anti-atrazine warrior. He raps about atrazine and has a website, “atrazinelovers.com,” with information on the dangers of atrazine.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Asked why he has become increasingly vocal, Hayes said, “I went to Harvard on scholarships. I owe you! I did not go to school to let someone pay me off to say things that are not true.”</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">In heated and sometimes mocking emails to Syngenta, Hayes has rapped, and used profanities and sexual taunts.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The corporation filed an ethics complaint with the University of California, Berkeley, and publicly released the emails in 2010. The ethics complaint was judged to be without merit.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes accused Syngenta of pressuring him through UC-Berkeley officials. He said he now pays as much as 20 times more than other researchers for his lab operations. He added that his federal grant applications have been getting the highest scores in evaluations, but are being turned down. He suspects the company of involvement in the sudden hurdles he is facing.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Hayes said Syngenta employees had threatened him verbally and said they were going after his family, but this was the first time he knew these plans were in writing.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“They impacted my professional and personal life,” he said. “It’s sobering to get substantiation of the verbal attacks they made.”</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The company contends that Hayes’ frog studies are flawed, and that its own research has not replicated his findings. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other scientists, however, are showing that atrazine disturbs the sexual development of other amphibians </span>as well.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In one memo, the company denied pressuring Duke University not to hire Hayes, but in her deposition on June 9, 2011, Ford, Syngenta’s former spokeswoman, said that Gary Dickson, a Syngenta employee, contacted a dean at Duke to inform him of the contentious relationship between Hayes and Syngenta.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Another document, from Jayne Thompson & Associates, suggested why: “Duke, located in Durham, is close to Syngenta Crop Protection headquarters in Greensboro and to our research facility in RTP [Research Triangle Park], and we wanted to protect our reputation in our community and among our employees.”</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Syngenta contact with Duke University (p. 5)</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Ford also said Syngenta gave financial support to the<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Hudson Institute and had asked Alex Avery, at the institute’s Center for Global Food Issues, to write reports critical of Hayes</span>. She later said that unlike Hayes, Avery has not published in any peer-reviewed journals that she knew of and he did not disclose payments from Syngenta.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The Hudson Institute is a conservative nonprofit focused on shaping public policy on issues ranging from international relations to technology and health care.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In one document, Ford noted that a principal with the White House Writers Group taped a phone call with Hayes and “set him up.” Hayes was baited through emails from Syngenta’s army of allies. The scientist’s emails were posted on the Syngenta web site as part of the campaign to discredit him.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“If TH [Tyrone Hayes] is involved in scandal, the enviros will drop him,” Ford wrote. “Can prevent citing of TH data by revealing him as non-credible,” she added.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Secret Payments to “Independent” Allies</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Court documents include a “Supportive Third Party Stakeholders Database” of 130 people and organizations the company could count on to publicly support atrazine, often for a price. Documents show people on the list were coached, their statements in support of atrazine were edited by the company and payments to them were not publicly disclosed. In some cases, Syngenta or its PR team wrote the Op-Ed pieces and then scanned its stakeholder database for a signer.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In an Oct. 17, 2009, memo to Syngenta’s Ford, Jayne Thompson warned that some of the language in four Op-Eds penned by the White House Writers Group is suggestive of their source, which “should be avoided at all costs.”</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Hiding the source of Op-Eds on atrazine (p. 12)</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Court documents include an email dated Oct. 28, 2009, from a Syngenta employee asking her boss how to pay these third-party allies who write in support of atrazine. There are consistent warnings to be sure supporters appear independent, with no links to the corporation.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In one case, <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Syngenta paid $100,000 to the nonprofit American Council on Science and Health </span>for support that included an Op-Ed piece criticizing the work of journalist Charles Duhigg of the New York Times, who wrote a story on atrazine as part of its Toxic Waters series in 2009. Without disclosing this financial support from Syngenta, president and founder Elizabeth Whelan derided the New York Times article on atrazine as, “All the news that’s fit to scare.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">ACSH is a nonprofit that advocates against what it considers government’s over-regulation of issues related to science and health.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">ACSH $100,000 dollar campaign (p. 1)</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“Dear Syngenta friends,” began a 2009 email from Gilbert Ross, a physician at ACSH, thanking Syngenta for its payments and financial support over the years. “Such general operating support is the lifeblood of a small nonprofit like ours, and is both deeply appreciated and much needed,” wrote Ross.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In response to emailed questions for this article, Ross defended the decision not to publicly disclose the payments, and dismissed Hayes as an “outlier.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“To ‘disclose’ funding on every topic we cover – and there are many – would give the mistaken impression that the donations came first to encourage or persuade us to cover a topic, and cover it in a manner beneficial to the donor,” Ross wrote.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Atrazine, he said, “has been well-known and widely proven to be highly beneficial for agriculture and crop yields and economics of farming. Those who promote hysteria and baseless (commonly litigation-driven) attacks on it are not coming from a sound-science POV [point of view], and we have no apologies nor explanations needed for accepting support from companies who develop and market crop protection chemicals which are manifestly beneficial and pose either no health risk or merely hypothetical ‘risk.’ ”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Steven Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com and president of Citizens for the Integrity of Science, is also in Syngenta’s Supportive Third Party Stakeholders Database.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In a Dec. 3, 2004, email to Syngenta, Milloy requests a grant of $15,000 for the nonprofit Free Enterprise Education Institute for an atrazine stewardship cost-benefit analysis project.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In a letter dated Aug. 6, 2008, Milloy requests a $25,000 grant for the nonprofit Free Enterprise Project of the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Center for Public Policy Research</span>. In an email on that date, he writes, “send the check to me as usual and I’ll take care of it.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">While Op-Eds aim to shape public opinion, economic and cost-benefit analyses were also important, because EPA rulings on pesticide use are based on health, environmental and economic effects.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In an email to Syngenta’s head of communications, Thompson praises an essay that ran in the Belleville News Democrat, an Illinois newspaper based about 20 miles from Edwardsville, the community that initiated the lawsuit.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The 2006 essay was signed by <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jay Lehr of the Heartland Institute.</span> The essay claimed the Holiday Shores lawsuit could, if successful, shrink the nation’s food supply.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“These are great clips for us because they get out some of our messages from someone (Lehr) who comes off sounding like an unbiased expert. Another strength is that the messages do not sound like they came from Syngenta,” Thompson wrote.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The Heartland Institute fought a subpoena all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court in 2012 that would have forced it to disclose any financial relationship with Syngenta and the source of its articles supporting atrazine. The Heartland Institute argued disclosure would violate its First Amendment rights. The case settled before a ruling was issued, so the relationship remains undisclosed.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In response to an emailed question, the Heartland Institute did not deny receiving funding from Syngenta. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Any money it receives, the institute maintained, is considered a donation to a nonprofit, and Heartland was not obligated to disclose donor information. Its president, Joseph Bast, has said he would go to jail for contempt of court “rather than share a single note he had ever made during a meeting with a donor.”</span></div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In addition to working with third-party allies, another Syngenta effort to fight the lawsuit was to go directly to plaintiffs, both actual and potential.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">An estimated 80 million pounds of atrazine are sold in the United States each year. </div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In her deposition, Ford confirmed the company convened focus groups and contacted managers at community water systems to discuss the lawsuit, explain the financial and political implications of participation in the suit and help them evaluate whether they should stay in the class action or opt out.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In her deposition,<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"> Ford confirmed a discussion with Syngenta attorneys about how to pressure homeowners and Realtors or (real estate agents) in Holiday Shores to drop out of the lawsuit, by telling them the suit would harm property values.</span></div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Ford insisted the strategy was not carried out, but was then asked to read from a meeting agenda that stated: “assign who will identify groups and assemble lists of Realtors/Holiday Shores residents/growers” and “determine collateral materials needed for briefing these folks. Determine who will actually be reaching out to these individuals.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">She said that according to her recollection, these contacts did not take place.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Syngenta released a statement about the settlement agreement, saying: “This settlement ends the business uncertainty and expense of protracted litigation surrounding this critical product that has been the backbone of weed control for more than 50 years. It allows farmers to continue to realize the benefits of atrazine to agriculture, the economy, and the environment.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Following the settlement, Tillery has shifted his strategy. He does not plan on filing another class action lawsuit over atrazine in drinking water. Instead, he said, he plans to start filing individual lawsuits on behalf of children with birth defects. </div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Downwind: Big Ag at Your Door</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">February 14, 2012</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">A crop duster spraying for weeds. Photo Courtesy of Roger Smith</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">BLACHLY, Ore. — Dan and Maya Gee left the congestion and pollution of Chicago, hungering for a cleaner life. They began an organic farming operation in the Oregon Coast Range, an area west of Eugene noted for its spectacular beauty and rugged mountains, towering Douglas fir and Sitka spruce.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The couple fell in love with what they thought was pristine countryside, far removed from pollution and industry. They built a home combining handcrafted artistry and untreated natural building materials. In this temperate climate, they work outside almost year-round.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">But over the last half-dozen years, the Gees and their neighbors in the Triangle Lake area, fellow urban transplants, say they have all developed chronic health problems. Unexplained bouts of vomiting, severe headaches, respiratory problems, joint pain and extreme muscle weakness have affected everyone. The women’s menstrual periods have become erratic.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">For years, they suspected herbicides were to blame. Big lumber companies apply the chemicals by helicopter and ground applicators on clear-cut timberland over the mountainsides, often spraying right up to their property lines. Helicopter blades create enough air turbulence to blow a chemical fog over nearby property. One farmer lost his entire fruit orchard. Another lost hundreds of blueberry bushes. Day Owen, a neighbor of the Gees in the Triangle Lake area, said a ground applicator sprayed pesticides right up to the grounds of the Triangle Lake School, 60 feet from classroom windows.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">And for years, state health and environmental agencies have dismissed residents’ concerns as groundless, saying there is no evidence linking these herbicide applications to health problems.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Now, through independent scientific analysis, the Gees and more than 30 of their neighbors have documented two herbicides linked to cancer and birth defects, <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">atrazine and 2,4-D, i</span>n their own bodies at alarmingly high levels. And they are demanding answers.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">A urinalysis test done at a lab in April measured atrazine, an endocrine disrupting chemical, at 41.1 parts per billion in Eron King, a 37-year-old farmer who moved here from Eugene, Oregon. That’s 1,370 percent higher than the average of 3 parts per billion considered safe in drinking water by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. No safe threshold has been established for atrazine or 2,4-D in humans. Dan Gee’s April urinalysis results showed 31.7 parts per billion of 2,4-D, one of the chemicals in Agent Orange. The EPA maximum contamination level for 2,4-D in drinking water is 70 parts per billion.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The effects of low-level exposure are unknown, but high exposure is linked to kidney, liver and adrenal gland damage. Every urine sample taken from 23 residents of Triangle Lake in January and from 34 in April was positive for both herbicides.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">The results are startling enough that federal and state officials have descended on the area and are running another set of urinalysis tests, while the farmers have organized themselves into a movement they are calling the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Pitchfork Rebellion.”</span></div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Frustrated by years of government inaction, they are conducting independent scientific analysis, and producing proof that is startling and disturbing about the chemicals they—and millions of Americans—unwittingly ingest, inhale and absorb every day. These chemicals are neurotoxins, carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, with evidence mounting that exposures today cause damage at least four generations into the future.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">New research is leading growing numbers of scientists and physicians to challenge conventional wisdom about what is safe when it comes to pesticides and pesticide drift. Through research and litigation, they are also characterizing pesticide spillover as a form of trespass, willful negligence and property damage. And people objecting to drift are turning to expensive scientific analysis to bolster their objections, because this kind of testing is not routinely done.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">However alarming the Oregon results appear, they are likely only a hint of what similar testing in the Midwest would show. One scientist who has studied atrazine extensively said she would expect urinalysis testing during key periods in the Midwest would show similar or higher levels, because most of the 76 million pounds of atrazine used in this country each year fall over the corn belt.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Dr. Jill Carnahan grew up in Central Illinois, where, she says, she was exposed to atrazine from a young age. In medical school, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “There is no question in my mind,” Carnahan said, that the exposure “is linked to my early breast cancer.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Now practicing in Colorado, Carnahan called current levels of chemical exposures “terrifying.” She explains to her patients what atrazine and other endocrine disrupting chemicals are and how to avoid them.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">A recent study by the Institute of Medicine was widely reported to have found few links between environmental factors and breast cancer. Still, it warned women to avoid exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals that may be linked to breast cancer. While these links have not been definitely proven, the report calls them “provocative” and says they warrant further study. The report states childhood cancers, such as leukemia and brain tumors, have been linked to prenatal exposures to pesticides.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“Strong evidence indicates that aspects of fetal growth, such as birth weight, are associated with breast cancer risk as an adult,” the report states.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">It also appears that atrazine persists in the body long after exposure ends. A study published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives found atrazine in the urine of 40 percent of 579 pregnant women in France, nearly a decade after atrazine was banned in that country. Birth weight, birth length and head circumference all were lower in babies of women with atrazine in their urine.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">It’s Raining Atrazine</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">No one, rural or urban, is untouched by chemical drift. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 89 to 100 percent of fetuses in the United States are exposed to pesticides in utero and 95 percent of the population has measurable pesticide metabolites in their urine. Atrazine vaporizes and returns to Earth in rain, snow and fog. It has been found above the Arctic Circle. When it rains on Michigan Avenue in Chicago or Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., it’s raining atrazine. One study published in the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Journal of Environmental Quality found atrazine in the rain in Iowa at 154 parts per billion, well above levels of 3 parts per billion established by the EPA as the average level for safety in drinking water.</span></div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">There are more than 86,000 chemicals on the market today, and only 1 to 2 percent has been tested for health effects.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“Nearly every chemical ends up in someone, and certain classes of chemicals (such as) PCBs, flame retardants, dioxins, DDT, Teflon, perchlorate, lead, mercury and pesticides are found in virtually everyone,” said Dr. Paul Winchester, of Indiana University School of Medicine.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Director of the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis, Winchester noted an inordinately high number of birth defects among newborns in the hospital when he first joined the staff. He found no plausible explanation, so he designed a study. He correlated 30.11 million births nationwide between 1996 and 2002 with birth defects diagnosed in the first days of life. In a paper published in Acta Paediatrica, a peer reviewed journal, Winchester reported disproportionately high rates of birth defects for children conceived between April and July, the peak period of atrazine applications.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“The positive correlation was so strong I couldn’t believe it,” Winchester said. “This study is one of the most shocking things on the planet. It’s frightening to me.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In another study, Winchester measured the school performance of 1.6 million children in Indiana in grades 3 through 10 and found significantly lower scores on statewide standardized tests in math and language for children conceived in months of peak pesticide and nitrate use.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“Women have not given consent to become toxic waste dumps,” he said.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">To further test links between in utero pesticide exposure and the ability to learn, Dr. Warren Porter, a professor of environmental toxicology at University of Wisconsin, devised an experiment using laboratory mice exposed to the pesticide chlorpyrifos at levels comparable to what humans encounter in the environment. He found female mice whose mothers were exposed during pregnancy were significantly slower learns, but male mice from the same mothers were unaffected – a difference he thinks may be linked to the males’ higher level of liver-detoxifying enzymes.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Dr. Tim Pastoor, principal scientist and toxicologist with Syngenta, the major manufacturer of atrazine in the United States, said atrazine has withstood the scrutiny of multiple reviews by the EPA and always been found safe. He said the results correlating atrazine use in the spring with inordinately high rates of birth defects could be duplicated by correlating spring tornadoes or lightning strikes during months of conception to higher rates of birth defects, and he contends states with highest atrazine use actually had lowest birth defects. He called the EPA 3 parts per billion safety threshold for atrazine in drinking water “extremely conservative.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Winchester disputes Pastoor’s contention that areas with high atrazine use had the lowest birth defects. He found that counties with high pesticide use had higher birth defects. Nearly every category of birth defects increased, and 11 of 22 categories had statistically significant increases. His research showed that counties with lower pesticide use had lower rates of birth defects.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Neila Owen enters the pen where she milks her goats. / Photo by David Zalaznik</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Triangle Lake, Oregon</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">On a mild autumn afternoon, Dan Gee pointed across his farm field at the picturesque Coast Range beyond and described how nightly fog forms and settles in his valley, sometimes lingering until late morning. Since moving to the Triangle Lake area in 2006, the Gees have come to think of this fog as toxic, laced with atrazine and 2,4-D – herbicides never tested in combination by the EPA for long-term, chronic health effects.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“These mountains are soaked in toxins, said Maya Gee, 35, an artist. “I can smell chemicals in the fog. It’s like the earth perspiring and giving off its toxins.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Gee, 38, said he and his wife can taste a metallic, chemical flavor in their mouths. The couple wants to start a family, but they don’t know the implications caused by these toxins in their bodies at such high concentrations.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“We eat organic. We built our home using the best cleanest materials, and here we are with 2,4-D and atrazine in our urine,” Maya Gee said. “We’re organic farmers. We’re always working outside. We tested our water. No chemicals. We tested our soil. No toxins. So where is our exposure? Air.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Atrazine is an endocrine disruptor. These chemicals alter hormones regulating virtually every organ of the body, from the brain to the ovaries and prostate. The growing level of endocrine disruptors in the environment has led Dr. Theo Colborn, founder and president of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a non-profit organization that studies endocrine disruptors, to conclude that these chemicals will prove more devastating for our planet than global climate change.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Colborn cites research showing that endocrine disruptors are linked to cancer, autism, asthma, diabetes, obesity, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and ADHD among a growing list of illnesses. Endocrine disrupting chemicals, including atrazine, that affect the hippocampus are the ones Colborn worries about the most because they affect the ability to love, parent, bond, communicate and process information.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Dr. Tyrone Hayes, an endocrinologist at University of California, Berkeley, has shown that exposure to even low levels of atrazine produced hermaphroditic demasculinized frogs with low levels of testosterone. He found male frogs with viable eggs that are actually fertilized by other males.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Truly independent studies of the effects of atrazine are countered by research sponsored by the pesticide industry, which consistently affirms the safety of pesticides. Dr. Jason Rohr, an integrative biologist at University of South Florida, analyzed an industry-funded review of the effects of atrazine on fish and frogs and concluded that more than 50 studies were misrepresented, with 122 inaccurate and 22 misleading statements, of which 96 percent made atrazine appear less dangerous.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">That has left atrazine’s victims to essentially go after the truth on their own. Day Owen, a former health food store owner, who moved to the area to farm organically, began the Pitchfork Rebellion to get answers.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Owen contacted Dr. Dana Barr, a research professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, and formerly a toxicologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He asked her about urinalysis testing. Barr agreed to pay for the testing out of her own budget, and run results for samples taken in January and April. Results showed alarmingly high levels of atrazine and 2,4-D in every person, including children.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Responding to emailed questions, Barr indicated she was surprised by the findings. The urinalysis findings, Barr told the Oregon Forestry Board, suggest these toxins may be stored in fat tissue in the body long after exposure.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“When we moved here we were expecting a natural paradise, but almost from the beginning we started to hear horror stories of aerial spraying and sick children,” said Owen, 53.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">After being exposed to chemical spraying, Owen and his wife Neila, 50, have come down with intense headaches, cramps, vomiting, muscle weakness, joint pain and fatigue. They fear those are only the short-term reactions and that there may be long-term repercussions.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Eron King, the farmer, is concerned enough that she documents the pesticide spraying by racing to nearby mountain positions and videotaping plumes of chemicals billowing from helicopters — clearly showing pesticides drifting from the targeted site. She recently suffered a miscarriage and is worried about her two sons’ exposure. Both children, ages 6 and 11, tested positive for atrazine and 2,4-D in their urine.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Reviewing the urinalysis results for six of the residents of the Triangle Lake region who were tested, Porter said, “These levels have profound implications for short-term and long-term health.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Dr. Margaret Reeves, a senior scientist with Pesticide Action Network in San Francisco, a non-profit group that opposes the use of chemical pesticides, also reviewed the analysis results and said, “This raises a huge alarm.” The individual pesticides, she said, have “incredible endocrine disrupting effects ” In combination,, they become even more potent.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Reeves said the Triangle Lake urinalysis results clearly indicate that the CDC needs to go back and do more atrazine testing. Its 2009 National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, based on data from 1999-2002, found no detectable levels of atrazine. Reeves said an important flaw in the government’s collection of data for the survey is a failure to indicate when and where the testing is done.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Atrazine levels in the environment peak during key months of application, April through July, and failure to collect during those months would miss the period of high exposures altogether and deliver a misleading conclusion. Additionally, testing locations should be identified based on economic activities in the region such as farming or industry.</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Winchester has long contended that finding no levels of atrazine flies in the face of reason, because it is one of the most widely used pesticides in the country. When the CDC issued its 2006 survey reporting no significant levels of atrazine in the population as a whole, Winchester called the CDC and questioned the finding. He learned the survey had been conducted checking for just one of 11 atrazine metabolites. His call prompted the researcher, Barr, to conduct a follow-up study with 24 people tested for a full spectrum of atrazine metabolites. She found metabolites in almost every person and concluded the presence of atrazine in the human population has been significantly underestimated.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Metabolites</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Metabolites are sometimes called break-down products. As chemicals, food or drugs are broken down in the body or in the environment, they form metabolites. In the case of atrazine, the herbicide is broken down into 11 metabolites, some of which are as toxic as the complete formulation.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Winchester believes that if testing were done for atrazine metabolites, between 70 and 90 percent of the population would have measurable levels.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">He said while the EPA has established what it considers safe levels of atrazine in drinking water, it has not determined what, if any, level could be considered safe in the human body, and the EPA does no evaluation of the herbicide’s potential tie to birth defects or to the body’s delicate endocrine system.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“The EPA is not adequately testing for neurological, endocrine, developmental, immune or epigenetic damage,” Porter said. “This is unconscionable to me because it means we are experimenting with our fetuses and our children without their consent.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In evaluating the health impact of pesticide and chemical exposures, Winchester said, “Prevention is the only rational place to be.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Pesticide exposure for children can cause more severe damage because the liver, the body’s primary mechanism for filtering out toxins, has not reached its full potential, said Porter, the University of Wisconsin professor. “Fetuses and children have fewer defenses,” he noted. “The immune system is relatively incomplete at birth.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">He has found atrazine lowers immunity, opening the door to a host of long-term chronic complications. The links are difficult to prove, however, because there is often a lengthy period between exposure and diagnosis. Almost counter-intuitively, Porter and other scientists are now suspecting long-term, low-level exposures may prove more damaging to human health than brief high-dose hits.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Porter said EPA testing and safety levels for atrazine are wildly off the mark. They consider exposure safe at 3 parts per billion in drinking water, but the human endocrine system operates at parts per trillion– 1,000 times lower than EPA benchmark levels. It is at parts per trillion in the human body that compounds trigger endocrine activity, Porter said.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Clear-cut timberland by Triangle Lake in Blachly, Oregon. Following the timber harvest, these mountains are often treated with atrazine and 2,4-D. / Photo by David Zalaznik</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Dr. Suzanne Fenton, a toxicologist with the National Institutes of Health, also reviewed the Triangle Lake urinalysis results. Fenton said she would expect levels of atrazine in residents of the Midwest to run equal to or higher than those in Oregon.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">While water companies are required to test for atrazine, they are not required to test for all the metabolites, which can cause the same health problems as atrazine. Fenton has tested water samples and found atrazine at the 3 parts per billion considered safe by the EPA, but levels of atrazine metabolites at up to 25 parts per billion. She said testing should look for a mixture of metabolites.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Fenton has studied the effects of atrazine and other pesticides on mammary glands and said all pregnant and lactating women, as well as adolescents who have not yet reached puberty, should be warned about potential sources of exposure by health education teachers, pediatricians, obstetricians, lactation consultants and midwives. She would like to see medical schools teach about the risks of cancer, infertility, inflammatory disease and miscarriage caused by exposure to pesticides during critical periods of growth.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">“There should be continuing education courses for obstetricians and pediatricians on endocrine disrupting chemicals,” she said. “We have to protect our children. Protect them in utero. The risk for women with breast cancer is 10 to 20 percent inherited and up to 90 percent environment and lifestyle.”</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In assessing the health risks of atrazine, EPA practices tend to undermine the impact of independent researchers. The government conducts its risk assessment for chemicals based on “weight of evidence.” When academic scientists generate reports based on sound science, the impact can be diluted by reports generated by industry interested in keeping pesticides on the market with few restrictions.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Chemical makers have also turned to the Freedom of Information Act, in what independent researchers contend is an effort to keep academic and government scientists tied up. A FOIA request was served on Dr. Fenton’s lab by Syngenta virtually halted work, shifting all effort from research to complying with the FOIA request.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">In the Triangle Lake area, another round of urinalysis testing and environmental testing is underway involving dozens of scientists in federal and state agencies. Bruce Pokarney, spokesman with the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Pesticide Analytical Response Center, said an investigation of this size and focus has never before been undertaken in the state. The agencies are reviewing new data and are expected to issue a joint report in the coming months.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">>>> Read Part 2 – Pitchfork Rebels: Organic Farmers Take on Big Ag</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;"> Update: In an e-mail following publication, Syngenta called atrazine “one of the most carefully examined herbicides in the world,” and said that, “Its safety has been clearly established by more than 6,000 scientific studies conducted over the past 50 years.” The company dismissed the research cited in the article as “unproven science and scare tactics.” Read the full Syngenta Response.</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">Clare Howard is a freelance journalist and member of 100Reporters. This article was made possible with a George Polk Investigative Reporting grant funded by the Ford Foundation.</div>
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</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">Related posts:</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">
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<div style=" text-align: left;"> Coming Clean: Water Companies Call Industry to Account</div>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">by Clare Howard / Published in Corruption</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://100r.org/2012/02/downwind/">http://100r.org/2012/02/downwind/</a></div>
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<span style=" font-size: small;">good on alar: </span></p>
<h3 class="r" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ySNuNUX3fwAC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=sacramento+bee+environment+inc+2001&source=bl&ots=ObjlL0EBIE&sig=2Sv5jYNbo1LkFBMfN0PBrSVHerA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eAy2UbHSKo6gyQHgxoD4Bg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA">Covering the <em>Environment</em>: How Journalists Work the <em>Green</em> Beat - Page 89 - Google Books Result</a></h3>
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<div class="f kv" style=" text-align: left; white-space: nowrap;"><cite>books.google.com/books?isbn=0805857699</cite></div>
<div class="f slp" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&hs=FL7&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Bob+Wyss%22&sa=X&ei=eAy2UbHSKo6gyQHgxoD4Bg&ved=0CEgQ9AgwBA" class="fl">Bob Wyss</a> - 2008 - Language Arts & Disciplines</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">In <em>2001</em> Tom Knudson of the <em>Sacramento Bee</em> wrote a series titled “<em>Environment</em>, <em>Inc</em>.” (Knudson, <em>2001a</em>), reporting that the nation's largest environmental <b>...</b></div>
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<table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;" width="50%">December 18, 2006 | <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080501103158/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/back_issues.php" class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">Back Issues</a></td><td class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;" width="50%" align="right">« <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080501103158/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000324.php" class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">previous</a> | <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080501103158/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000326.php" class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">next</a> »</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style="text-align: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="largebold" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; font-weight: bold;">EPA Exempts Pesticides from Clean Water Act</span>
<font class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Environmental groups are very concerned about the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent decision to allow the application of pesticides on waterways. Before this exemption, a permit under the Clean Water Act was required for pesticides applied on or near waterways.</font>
<font class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“More protection is needed from pesticides, not less,” said Jay Feldman of Beyond Pesticides, a consumer watchdog group in a statement. Feldman noted that the Clean Water Act requires a health-based standard to protect waterways whereas the new standards are less stringent and fail to regulate water quality or protect aquatic ecosystems.</font>
<font class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Under the new rule, if the pesticide will be used to control aquatic weeds, mosquitoes or other pests, no permit is needed and pesticides can be sprayed directly on a body of water or near it.</font>
<font class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">There are many unintended consequences to pesticide spraying. According to Environmental Defense, some mosquito control pesticides are toxic to both bees and fish.</font>
<font class="body" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">With this decision, the EPA has abdicated responsibility for the health of our nation’s lakes and streams.</font>
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<h1 class="print-title" style=" text-align: left;">Bayer and Syngenta Lobby Furiously Against EU Efforts to Limit Pesticides and Save Bees</h1>
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<div class="meta" style=" text-align: left;"><span class="submitted">by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35294/rebekah-wilce" title="View user profile.">Rebekah Wilce</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span> — April 22, 2013 - 6:53am</span></div>
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<li class="vocabulary-2" style=" text-align: left;">Topics: <span class="term-747"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/food">Food</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span></span>, <span class="term-59"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations">Corporations</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span></span>, <span class="term-4"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/environment">Environment</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span></span></li>
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<li class="vocabulary-9" style=" text-align: left;">Projects: <span class="term-740"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/projects/food-rights-network">Food Rights Network</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span></span></li>
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<div style=" text-align: left;"><a class="da2a_button" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2013%2F04%2F12066%2Fbayer-and-syngenta-lobby-furiously-against-eu-efforts-limit-pesticides-and-save-b&linkname=Bayer%20and%20Syngenta%20Lobby%20Furiously%20Against%20EU%20Efforts%20to%20Limit%20Pesticides%20and%20Save%20Bees%20" id="da2a_1"><img src="/69a76e5d-5fee-5c33-9ed1-a66759b6c859.png"/> Share this</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span></div>
<p style=" text-align: left;">Bee populations have been declining rapidly worldwide in recent years -- in the U.S., they have declined by almost <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1873833/frontline_online_whats_killing_our_bees.html" target="blank">50 percent</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span> just since October 2012, according to <em>The Ecologist</em>. The problem is complex, with possible culprits including certain parasites (like Varroa mites), viruses, pesticides, and industrial agriculture. But <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/gca?sendit.y=10&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F348&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F351&sendit=Get%20all%20checked%20abstract%28s%29" target="blank">two studies</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> published in early 2012 in the journal <em>Science</em> suggested a particularly strong connection between the use of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids and the decline of both bumble bee and honeybee populations.
These and other studies led the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to recommend a two-year ban of the most controversial neonicotinoids by the European Commission: thiamethoxam, manufactured by Swiss company <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Syngenta" target="blank">Syngenta</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span>; and imidacloprid and clothianidin, manufactured by German company <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bayer" target="blank">Bayer</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span>. Private letters recently obtained and released by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) reveal that Bayer and Syngenta have engaged in <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/publications/pesticides-against-pollinators" target="blank">furious lobbying</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span> against these measures. So far, the proposed partial ban has <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/liveanimals/bees/neonicotinoids_en.htm" target="blank">failed to reach a qualified majority</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span> of member states in the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health.
(Readers may recall that the Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11277/syngenta-prs-weed-killer-spin-machine-investigating-press-and-shaping-news-about" target="_blank">reported</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> in 2012 that Syngenta's PR team investigated the press and spent millions to spin news coverage in the face of growing concerns about potential health risks from its widely used weed-killer products containing atrazine.)</p>
<h2 style=" text-align: left;">Anatomy of a Neurotoxin: Neonicotinoid Pesticides</h2>
<p style=" text-align: left;">Neonicotinoid insecticides have been used for years on corn, soy, wheat, and canola (called rapeseed in Canada and Europe). When they were introduced in the 1990s, they were <a href="http://bees.pan-uk.org/neonicotinoids" target="blank">initially welcomed</a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span> as much safer for humans, livestock and birds than other insecticides. Their most common use is as a seed treatment. Since they are a systemic pesticide, from the seed they enter each part of the growing plant, including the pollen. According to the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), <a href="http://www.panna.org/press-release/farmers-press-access-bee-friendly-corn-seeds" target="blank">94 percent of U.S. corn seeds</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> are treated with either imidacloprid or clothianidin. That makes nicotinoids remarkably prevalent in pollen collected by bees.
Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex, was one of the authors of the spring 2012 <em>Science</em> <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/gca?sendit.y=10&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F348&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F351&sendit=Get%20all%20checked%20abstract%28s%29#abstr-2" target="_blank">study on neonicotinoids and bumble bees</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span>. In the study, scientists exposed bumble bee colonies to the neonicotinoid imidacloprid. Compared to control colonies, treated colonies "had a significantly reduced growth rate and suffered an 85% reduction in production of queens..." Dr. Goulson told CMD:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style=" text-align: left;">"Exposure to these pesticides, which are essentially a neurotoxin, was affecting the ability of the bees to learn, to find their way home, to navigate, to collect food, and so on, which is hardly surprising if you realize they're neurotoxins. ... What we found, which was I must admit surprising in its extent, was that the treated nests did grow more slowly, but most dramatically, the effect on queen production was really strong. So we had an 85 percent drop in queen production of nests that were exposed just for that two-week period to pretty low concentrations of these pesticides compared to the control nests."</p>
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<p style=" text-align: left;">Results of the honeybee study published in the same issue were similar: <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/348.abstract" target="_blank">honeybee foragers got lost</a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span> on their way back to hives after exposure to low doses of neonicotinoids.</p>
<h2 style=" text-align: left;">Bayer and Syngenta Lobby to Prevent Ban</h2>
<p style=" text-align: left;">Earlier scientific studies had already induced Italy, Slovenia, and Germany to suspend approval of new neonicotinoid-treated seeds and ban certain uses of the pesticides. Then in March 2012, the European Commission mandated EFSA to deliver a scientific opinion on the <a href="http://www.cra-api.it/online/apenet.htm" target="_blank">report</a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> that had led to Italy's suspension of neonicotinoid-treated corn seeds. After the April 2012 publication of the <em>Science</em> articles, the Commission asked EFSA to include them in its review. In June 2012, the French government announced that it would withdraw the registration of thiamethoxam.
The response of Bayer and Syngenta was to unleash a barrage of letters to the food safety agency and the European Commission, followed later by threatened lawsuits. As CEO reported, the two companies made the following increasingly shrill arguments against the proposed partial ban: that past incidents of pesticide poisoning of honeybees were <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_bayer_cropscience_to_commissioner_john_dalli_12th_june_2012.pdf" target="blank">farmers' fault</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span>, not the products'; that member states that had limited use of neonicotinoids were "<a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_syngenta_to_commissioner_john_dalli_8th_june_2012.pdf" target="blank">driven by a small group of activists and hobby beekeepers</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span>"; that the pesticide company is an <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_syngenta_to_commissioner_john_dalli_8th_june_2012.pdf" target="blank">important contributor to global food security</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span> and committed to spending money in Africa; that the agency was at risk of coming to "<a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_syngenta_to_commissioners_maire_geoghegan-quinn_and_dacian_ciolos_21st_november_2012.pdf" target="blank">wrong conclusions from a rushed process</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span> that could have disastrous implications for agriculture and ironically for bee health"; that "independent" analysis shows that Europe <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_syngenta_to_commissioners_maire_geoghegan-quinn_and_dacian_ciolos_21st_november_2012.pdf" target="_blank">can't survive without neonicotinoids</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span>; etc.
Eventually, when EFSA concluded that it recommended the pesticides be banned and sent Syngenta an embargoed press release with its findings, the company claimed there were inaccuracies, threatened to "<a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_and_fax_interexchange_between_syngenta_ashurst_lawers_and_efsa.pdf" target="blank">consider our legal options</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span>" if the release was not changed by a deadline set by Syngenta. Then, when the release was published without the company's suggested changes, <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_and_fax_interexchange_between_syngenta_ashurst_lawers_and_efsa.pdf" target="blank">demanded access</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span> to all documents related to the drafting of the press release "and in particular the name(s) of the civil servant(s) responsible for the decision to publish the Press Release setting aside Syngenta's comments."</p>
<h2 style=" text-align: left;">Follow-up with a PR "Charm Offensive"</h2>
<p style=" text-align: left;">In the wake of EFSA's and the European Commission's <a href="http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/130116.htm" target="blank">recommendations</a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span> and the subsequent <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/liveanimals/bees/neonicotinoids_en.htm" target="blank">failure</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span> of the European Member States to reach a qualified majority to put the ban in place effective July 2013, Bayer and Syngenta then launched what CEO called a "charm offensive to be seen as part of the solution rather than of the problem." For Syngenta, this consists of an upgrade of its PR sting "<a href="http://corporateeurope.org/news/not-industry-event" target="blank">Operation Pollinator</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span>," in which the company <a href="http://www.syngenta.com/global/corporate/en/news-center/news-releases/Pages/130328.aspx" target="blank">proposes to provide payments</a> <span class="print-footnote">[25]</span> to a few farmers to grow strips of flowers and other plants attractive to bees alongside their neonicotinoid-treated crops.
"This comprehensive plan will bring valuable insights into the area of bee health, whereas a ban on neonicotinoids would simply close the door to understanding the problem," Syngenta Chief Operating Officer John Atkin <a href="http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/manufacturers-propose-bee-action-plan-to-stave-off-eu-ban-on-pesticides-3880.aspx" target="_blank">told <em>Greenwise Business</em></a> <span class="print-footnote">[26]</span> in early April. "Banning these products would not save a single hive and it is time that everyone focused on addressing the real causes of declining bee populations."
Dr. Goulson responds that the answer is not so simple, but that "very probably" if neonicotoid pesticides were banned, "on average honeybees would be healthier and would be better able to cope with the other things that they're currently having to deal with..."</p>
<h2 style=" text-align: left;">Next Steps</h2>
<p style=" text-align: left;">EU member states are likely to vote again on the proposed partial ban of neonicotinoids on either <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/publications/pesticides-against-pollinators" target="_blank">April 26 or May 2</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span>, according to CEO, which notes: "Meanwhile, the pesticides industry is lobbying Member States hard to try to reach a qualified majority to reject the proposal outright and thus block the ban. The coming weeks' battle will be crucial: will industry interests prevail against bees' survival?"
But the issue of bees and pesticides is a global problem, and according to <em>PRWatch</em> contributor Jill Richardson, the extermination of honeybees, in particular, "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/without_honeybees_we_may_cease_to_be/" target="_blank">could set off a global food crisis</a> <span class="print-footnote">[27]</span>." She reports that, in contrast with Europe's efforts to enact measures to save the bees, beekeepers in the United States "remain frustrated that the U.S. government is not as forward-thinking." In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is "allowing the use of a new, unregistered neonicotinoids called sulfoxaflor, and proposing a 'conditional registration' for it," according to Richardson.
In response, the U.S. environmental advocate group PANNA and others are <a href="http://www.panna.org/press-release/beekeepers-and-public-interest-groups-sue-epa-over-bee-toxic-pesticides" target="blank">suing the EPA</a> <span class="print-footnote">[28]</span> "for its failure to protect pollinators from dangerous pesticides." PANNA is <a href="http://action.panna.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9948" target="blank">asking supporters</a> <span class="print-footnote">[29]</span> to urge the U.S. Congress to "step up," call a hearing, and "fix a broken pesticide law that leaves EPA hamstrung."</p>
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<div style=" text-align: left;">[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/35294/rebekah-wilce</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[2] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/food</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[3] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[4] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/environment</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[5] http://www.prwatch.org/projects/food-rights-network</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[6] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2013%2F04%2F12066%2Fbayer-and-syngenta-lobby-furiously-against-eu-efforts-limit-pesticides-and-save-b&linkname=Bayer%20and%20Syngenta%20Lobby%20Furiously%20Against%20EU%20Efforts%20to%20Limit%20Pesticides%20and%20Save%20Bees%20</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[7] http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1873833/frontline_online_whats_killing_our_bees.html</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[8] http://www.sciencemag.org/gca?sendit.y=10&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F348&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F351&sendit=Get%20all%20checked%20abstract%28s%29</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[9] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Syngenta</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[10] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bayer</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[11] http://corporateeurope.org/publications/pesticides-against-pollinators</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[12] http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/liveanimals/bees/neonicotinoids_en.htm</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[13] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11277/syngenta-prs-weed-killer-spin-machine-investigating-press-and-shaping-news-about</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[14] http://bees.pan-uk.org/neonicotinoids</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[15] http://www.panna.org/press-release/farmers-press-access-bee-friendly-corn-seeds</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[16] http://www.sciencemag.org/gca?sendit.y=10&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F348&gca=sci%3B336%2F6079%2F351&sendit=Get%20all%20checked%20abstract%28s%29#abstr-2</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[17] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/348.abstract</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[18] http://www.cra-api.it/online/apenet.htm</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[19] http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_bayer_cropscience_to_commissioner_john_dalli_12th_june_2012.pdf</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[20] http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_syngenta_to_commissioner_john_dalli_8th_june_2012.pdf</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[21] http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_from_syngenta_to_commissioners_maire_geoghegan-quinn_and_dacian_ciolos_21st_november_2012.pdf</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[22] http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/letter_and_fax_interexchange_between_syngenta_ashurst_lawers_and_efsa.pdf</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[23] http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/130116.htm</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[24] http://corporateeurope.org/news/not-industry-event</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[25] http://www.syngenta.com/global/corporate/en/news-center/news-releases/Pages/130328.aspx</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[26] http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/manufacturers-propose-bee-action-plan-to-stave-off-eu-ban-on-pesticides-3880.aspx</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[27] http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/without_honeybees_we_may_cease_to_be/</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[28] http://www.panna.org/press-release/beekeepers-and-public-interest-groups-sue-epa-over-bee-toxic-pesticides</div>
<div style=" text-align: left;">[29] http://action.panna.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9948</div>
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