Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog

(Beyond Pesticides, September 30, 2008) A group of insect-killing sprays known as neonicotinoids that are widely used in UK farming have now been banned in four other European countries because they are thought to be killing bees. Italy has just joined Germany, Slovenia and France in banning the sprays. This week the Italian government issued [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 29, 2008) A new study by Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) confirms that school children in Florida continue to breathe air contaminated by hazardous pesticides. Air monitoring near South Woods Elementary School in Hastings detected four agricultural chemicals in the air, often at levels that pose unacceptable risks to children. The [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 26, 2008) On September 24, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Ivory Coast farmworkers’ claims that they were victims of genocide when pesticide exposure made them sterile. The nearly 700 plaintiffs were exposed to the soil fumigant and nematocide 1,2-Dibromo-3-Chloropropane, or DBCP, while working on Dole Food Company farms in [...]

(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, September 24, 2008) Pesticides used on peach orchards over 50 years ago have been detected in the groundwater of three North Carolina counties. Tests have detected 117 tainted wells in Montgomery, Richmond and Moore counties in the past year, 77 of those at unsafe levels.
Public Health officials are scrambling to deliver safe water [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 23, 2008) According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s 2007 Water Quality Monitoring Report, released in August 2008, the endocrine disrupting herbicide atrazine is detected in pristine lakes in northern Minnesota far from the agricultural fields where it is applied. Metolachlor, acetochlor and dimethenamid are also frequent contaminants, according to the statewide [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 22, 2008) A study published in the September issue of Environmental Health Perspectives finds that low-dose, short-term exposure to esfenvalerate, a synthetic pyrethroid pesticide, delays the onset of puberty in rats at doses two times lower than U.S. EPA’s stated no observable effect level (NOEL) of 2.0 mg/kg/day. Synthetic pyrethroids are used [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 19, 2008) Adding to the body of epidemiologic evidence linking pesticides to Parkinson’s Disease (PD), a recent study shows a correlation between 100 PD patients and the use of the pesticide rotenone. The study was conducted by physicians and researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (UTHSCT) and [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 18, 2008) New research in the forthcoming issue of Biological Conservation reveals that roadsides maintained “conventionally” with the use of herbicides, non-native fast-growing grasses and frequent mowing support less native bee diversity and abundance than roadsides restored with native plants. Focus on the importance of native bees has increased in light of [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 17, 2008) A new study has found a link between total chemical contamination in the bodies of pregnant women and the risk of cryptorchidism in their male babies. Mothers whose babies were born with the defect had the highest concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mostly organochlorines like PCB and DDE, in [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 16, 2008) Responding to grassroots pressure highlighting the impact of pests and pesticides on public health, the Boston Public Housing Authority (BHA) is promoting integrated pest management (IPM) through its Healthy Pest Free Housing Initiative Project (HPFHI) in the city’s public housing facilities. The program, which was launched after the Committee for [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 15, 2008) One year after the USDA’s new regulation requiring raw almonds be treated with propylene oxide, a toxic fumigant recognized as a carcinogen by the U.S. EPA, went into effect, a group of fifteen American almond growers and wholesale nut handlers filed a lawsuit in the Washington, D.C. federal court on [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 12, 2008) Widespread use of nanoscale silver will challenge regulatory agencies to balance important potential benefits against the possibility of significant environmental risk, highlighting the need to identify research priorities concerning this emerging technology, according to a new report released this week by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). However, existing information [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 11, 2008) The North Carolina Pesticide Board has begun hearing evidence in a case from 2004 over suspected pesticide violations that were investigated after three female Ag-Mart farmworkers gave birth to babies with severe birth defects. In 2006, the family of Carlos Herrera Candelario, who was born without arms or legs, sued [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 10, 2008) Following the report released by the National Marine Fisheries Service that identified 37 pesticides that pose risks to salmon and steelhead, Oregon state officials are moving ahead to set new safety benchmarks for seven pesticides of priority concern.
A team from the Oregon Water Quality Pesticide Management Program identified seven priority [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 9, 2008) The U.S. Senate is proposing to cut $2 million per year from the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s premier organic research program, and the Bush Administration is threatening to cut a whopping $8 million, according to the Organic Farming Research Foundation. The move [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 8, 2008) Inorganic arsenic may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Common sources of inorganic arsenic exposure include dietary exposure, drinking water pollution, and contamination associated [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 5, 2008) On the night of August 28, a pesticide waste tank exploded at Bayer’s Institute, West Virginia plant. One worker was killed, another injured, and the blast was heard in Mink Shoals, more than ten miles away. Despite individual accounts of the resulting air pollution, Bayer officials assured the public that [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 4, 2008) On September 2, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa pending a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The Court determined that the planting of genetically modified alfalfa can result in potentially irreversible harm to [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 3, 2008) On September 1, new rules that set harmonized maximum reside levels (MRLs) for pesticides went into force in the European Union (EU), despite opposition from environmental groups that claim the new rules expose consumers to unacceptable levels of contamination. This new regulation, Regulation (EC) No 396/2005, is the result of [...]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 2, 2008) In new research findings by a Pennsylvania State University team, honey bees are exposed to a wide variety of pesticides outside of their hives. Add the outside assault to the pesticides already in the waxy structure of the hive, and bee researchers see a problem difficult to evaluate. However, an [...]