Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog

(Beyond Pesticides, September, 15, 2009) On September 11, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to place additional limitations on the use of three organophosphate pesticides — chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion — to protect endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
The announcement comes in response to a series of [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 19, 2009) Nearly six months after federal scientists began issuing restrictions to protect salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest and California, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has yet to take even the first step toward implementing these protections. This delay follows almost a decade of legal wrangling in which a [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 5, 2009) A new study published in the March 2009 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives finds that pesticide combinations cause more harm to endangered salmon than ndividual pesticide exposure. This means that single-pesticide risk assessments required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inadequately assess hazards.
Mixtures of organophosphate and carbamate pesticides are [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 11, 2009) Connecticut lawmakers are taking an interest in the much debated cause of a massive die-off of lobsters that has all but wiped out the state’s 40 million dollar industry, according to the Easton Courier. Fishermen and environmentalists blame the use of the insecticide malathion, a hazardous organophosphate, currently used in [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 9, 2009) Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry has published a study (Vol. 27(12):2496–2500) entitled “Effects of Malathion on Embryonic Development and Latent Susceptibility to Trematode Parasites in Ranid Tadpoles.” It shows that malathion used as an agricultural insecticide is responsible for interfering with the normal development of pickerel frog embryos, thus leaving them [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 8, 2008) A new study by a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researcher finds the pesticide poisoning incidence rate among U.S. agricultural workers is thirty-nine times higher than the incidence rate found in all other industries combined. The study, “Acute Pesticide Poisoning Among Agricultural Workers in the United [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 17, 2008) A toxic soup of the most commonly used pesticides frequently detected in nature can adversely affect the environment and decimate amphibian populations even if the concentration of the individual chemicals are within limits considered safe, according to University of Pittsburgh research published in the online edition of Oecologia.
The results [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 6, 2008) University of Pittsburgh researchers have found that the commonly used insecticide malathion can decimate tadpole populations by altering their food chain. The study, published in the October 1 edition of Ecological Applications, finds that gradual amounts of malathion that were too small to directly kill developing leopard frog tadpoles instead [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 25, 2008) Pesticides used as lice treatments can not only have extremely harmful effects on children, they are also not as effective as non- chemical treatments such as utilizing directed hot air, according to researchers. Back-to-school season often coincides with lice outbreaks, and parents should be aware of the risks involved in [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 19, 2008) Three toxic pesticides used heavily in the United States — chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion — harm children and farmworkers, poison wildlife, and taint food and drinking water, and despite well-documented hazards, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows homeowners, farmers and others to use these poisons in ways that harm salmon [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 14, 2008) The first report released by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) as a result of a lawsuit (NCAP et al. v. NMFS, No. 07-1791 RSL) settlement reveal “overwhelming evidence” to suggest that the pesticides chlorpyrifos, malathion, and diazinon increase the chance of extinction for protected salmon and steelhead. The report [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 13, 2008) Exposure to certain chemicals, including pesticides and nerve agents, explains the high rates of illness in Persian Gulf War Veterans, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Veterans from the 1990-91 conflict have a higher rate of chronic, multi-symptom health problems than [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 10, 2008) Head lice affect an estimated 12 million people in the U.S. each year, and are rapidly becoming resistant to over-the-counter and prescription medications. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have found that ivermectin, a compound produced by soil-dwelling bacteria, was 100 percent effective in killing head lice resistant to [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 20, 2008) Pesticides that run off agricultural land and mix in rivers and streams combine to have a greater than expected toxic effect on the salmon nervous system, according to researcher Nathaniel Scholz, PhD, a zoologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle.
Dr. Scholz, who presented his findings at [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2008) A study to be published in the February 2008 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives finds that children who eat a conventional diet of food produced with chemical-intensive practices carry residues of organophosate pesticides that are reduced or eliminated when they switch to an organic diet. The study is entitled “Dietary [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 14, 2008) Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have developed nanoparticles that can remove organochlorine pesticides from drinking water. These chemicals are quite persistent in the environment and difficult to remove from water. Notorious organochlorines include DDT, endosulfan, HCH (hexacholorcyclohexane) and aldrin, all of which have known health and/or [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 18, 2007) On September 16, 2007, researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences presented findings to the European Respiratory Society Annual Congress in Stockholm showing that exposure to several commonly used pesticides increases the risk of asthma in farmers. Pesticide exposure is a “potential risk factor for asthma and respiratory [...]