(Beyond Pesticides, June 21, 2010) Pesticide experiments using people as test subjects will have stricter federal rules to follow under a new agreement reached on June 17, 2010 between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and public health groups, farm worker advocates and environmental organizations. “People should never have been used as lab rats for [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 18, 2010) A panel of U.S. and Vietnamese policy makers, scientists, and citizens released a report on Wednesday urging the U.S. government and other donors to provide $300 million to clean up contaminated sites and care for Vietnamese harmed by exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide used by the U.S. to defoliate [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 8, 2010) An Indian court in Bhopal, India, capital of Madhya Pradesh, found chemical company Union Carbide guilty of negligence and convicted eight former senior employees for their role in the world’s worst industrial disaster that killed thousands. The verdict came 25 years after the Union Carbide gas-leak and included a sentence [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 2, 2010) After decades-long litigation over the use of the toxic pesticide dibromochloropropane, or DBCP, in the 1970′s which has been linked to sterility and has since been banned, Dole Food Co. is proposing new settlements for farm workers claiming they were injured by exposure to the pesticide. A request has been [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 7, 2010) Human Rights Watch has released a scathing report entitled “Fields of Peril” on the treatment of child farm workers in the United States. To compile the report, Human Rights Watch interviewed child and young adult farm laborers and parents in all regions of the country, as well as farm managers, [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 25, 2010) To include more grassroots activists and community members in Greening the Community: Green economy, organic environments and healthy people, Beyond Pesticides announced a new $25 “recession rate.” The conference, Beyond Pesticides’ 28th National Pesticide Forum, will be held April 9-10 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. To take [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 4, 2009) Twenty-five years ago, a toxic cloud of gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, enveloped the surrounding city, leaving thousands dead. Anywhere between 50,000 to 90,000 lbs of the chemical methyl isocyanate (MIC) are estimated to have leaked into the air, killing approximately 8,000-10,000 people within the first [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 16, 2009) Paraguayan authorities are being urged to step up their efforts to provide protection and health care to an indigenous community after toxic pesticides were used to intimidate them when they resisted being evicted from their ancestral lands. According to Amnesty International, on November 6, over 50 men apparently representing Brazilian [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 27, 2009) U.S. District Judge Paul Huck (Miami) has said a multimillion dollar judgment against U.S. food giant Dole and the Dow Chemical Company cannot be enforced because, “[T]he judgment was rendered under a system which does not provide impartial tribunal or procedures compatible with the requirements of due process of law, [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 1, 2009) On August 26, 2009, Bayer CropScience announced plans to reduce by 80 percent the storage of methyl isocyanate (MIC), the chemical used in pesticide production that caused the explosion in Bhopal, India and Institute, West Virgina. Two workers were killed in August 2008 when the chemical, an intermediate chemical used [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 19, 2009) Farmworker unions, support groups, and worker advocacy organizations today asked Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson to stop the pesticide poisoning of farmworker communities and uphold the Obama administration’s commitment to environmental justice. Citing a long EPA history of “inhumane neglect of toxic pesticide effects on farmworker community [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 21, 2009) According to a new study by the New York City (NYC) Department of Health, Columbia University and the NYC Housing Authority published in the online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives on April 15, 2009, “single visit” integrated pest management (IPM) at the building level (rather than individual rental units) is [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 25, 2009) After three years of legal battle, the North Carolina Pesticide Board on February 19, 2009 fined Florida-based Ag-Mart Produce Inc. a substantially lower fine of $3,000 than the originally proposed $185,000, after deciding that it can only prove six of about 200 worker safety accusations that had been levied against [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 24, 2009) NIEHS staff scientist Freya Kamel, Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health professor Chensheng (Alex) Lu, Ph.D., and Wake Forest University’s Center for Worker Health director Thomas Arcury, Ph.D. will speak as Science and Health panelists at Bridge to an Organic Future: Opportunities for health and the environment, the 27th National [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 9, 2009) Baldemar Velásquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO, will be speaking at Bridge to an Organic Future, the 27th National Pesticide Forum, April 3-4, 2009 in Carrboro, NC. FLOC, founded by Mr. Velásquez in 1967, is both a social movement and a labor union focusing on migrant [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 5, 2009) Former chief environmental correspondent for The New York Times Philip Shabecoff and freelance journalist Alice Shabecoff will be making a rare public talk at Bridge to an Organic Future, the 27th National Pesticide Forum, April 3-4, 2009 in Carrboro, NC. They will be speaking Friday evening at the conference and [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 18, 2008) North Carolina Governor Mike Easley last week signed into law Senate Bill 847, “An act to add agricultural workers to those protected against retaliation in the workplace and to direct the Pesticide Board to adopt rules requiring licensed pesticide applicators to record the specific time of day when each pesticide [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 15, 2008) After three years of deliberation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules for five highly toxic fumigant pesticides on July 10, 2008. Environmental health, community and farmworker groups say the rules, while substantially better than the past, still fall short of protecting people, workers and the environment. The [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 1, 2008) On behalf of the African American residents of Mossville, Louisiana, the non-profit, public interest law firm Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR) on June 23, 2008 filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) a detailed account of the human rights abuses suffered by residents as a consequence of [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 7, 2008) A coalition of farmworker advocates and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop the continued use of four deadly organophosphate pesticides. These pesticides were derived from nerve gas developed during World War II. Some of these pesticides have been detected in California’s rural schoolyards [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 26, 2008) The United Farm Workers of America, Beyond Pesticides and others, represented by lawyers from Earthjustice, argued in federal court that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to allow the use of azinphos-methyl until 2012 was unconscionable. The plaintiffs say EPA did not consider harm to farmworkers and their families, or [...]

Reclaiming Our Healthy Future: Political change to protect the next generation, the 26th National Pesticide Forum, will be held March 14-16 at the University of California, Berkeley. This exciting environmental health conference is just about a month away, sign-up now to pay the pre-registration rate.Speakers, panels and workshops Many scientists, authors, community leaders and activists [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 28, 2008) Reclaiming Our Healthy Future: Political change to protect the next generation, the 26th National Pesticide Forum, will be held March 14-16 at the University of California, Berkeley. Register now to pay the pre-registration rate. Recent speaker additions include Marla Cone, author of Silent Snow and environmental journalist with the Los [...]