(Beyond Pesticides, January 20, 2026) With Monday’s celebration and affirmation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy, the question of adequate protection of the people and communities at greatest risk from toxic chemical production, transportation, use, and disposal looms large. This is especially true with the current diminished federal regulatory authority and Bayer/Monsanto’s U.S. Supreme Court challenge of chemical manufacturers’ responsibility to warn users of their products of hazards like cancer. Actions Being Taken In response to the chemical industry campaign to deny people the right to sue under longstanding failure to warn law, groups are calling for public support of U.S Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) bill, Pesticide Injury Accountability Act(S. 2324) seeks to uphold this right  to sue. The groups are calling on the public to “Tell your U.S. Senator to co-sponsor S. 2324, the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act.” This bill will amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1972 (FIFRA) to create a federal right of action for anyone who is harmed by a toxic pesticide.  In an additional action in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Pesticides is calling on the public to “Tell members of Congress to ensure that with the termination of environmental justice programs at EPA, they […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 17, 2026) The public’s right to sue chemical manufacturers that do not warn of product hazards will be up for review by the U.S. Supreme Court later this year, the justices decided Friday. Bayer/Monsanto is challenging billions of dollars in jury verdicts, which affirm longstanding jurisprudence that holds manufacturers responsible for disclosing hazards even when not required to do so by regulatory authorities. In the case being challenged, Durnell, John L. v. Monsanto, the injured party successfully argued that a chemical manufacturer has a duty to warn of potential hazards on their product label even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not require the warning. The failure-to-warn in the Durnell case resulted in a jury verdict of $1.2 billion, and the total number of jury verdicts and settlements on similar cases may amount to over $10 billion in liability if the Supreme Court upholds the lower courts and hundreds of thousands of other plaintiffs with the same claim. The cases involve exposure to the weed killer glyphosate (RoundupTM, which is the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. and worldwide, has been classified as posing a possible risk of cancer by the International Agency for […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 12, 2025) A study concluding that the weed killer glyphosate did not cause cancer was retracted last week after it was revealed in lawsuit documents that the authors did not disclose their relationship with Monsanto/Bayer. The editor-and-chief, Martin van den Berg, PhD of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, which published the article 25 years ago, wrote in the journal, “Concerns were raised regarding the authorship of this paper, validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions by the authors and the study sponsor and potential conflicts of interest of the authors.”  The study, titled “Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans” and coauthored by three researchers in New York, The Netherlands, and Canada, was referred to as a “Landmark glyphosate safety study” in a recent article by U.S. Right to Know.   While this retraction not only sheds light on Monsanto’s influence through ghostwriting, it adds to the wide body of evidence regarding the regulatory deficiencies currently in place. The revelation is a reminder of related incidents in which Monsanto (Bayer) and other companies have wielded excessive influence at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), undermining the integrity of the science needed to inform the regulatory decisions that safeguard health and the environment. (See Daily News Corruption Problems Persist at EPA.)  EPA Deficiencies  In addition to the initial registration process, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requires that EPA conduct a registration review of all pesticide […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 11, 2025) In an amicus brief published on December 1, 2025, the Office of the Solicitor General (SG) and the White House are calling on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to grant certiorari on Bayer’s petition to shield chemical companies that fail to warn people about the potential hazards of their pesticide products. The U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer (former Solicitor General of Missouri, home to Bayer-Monsanto’s U.S. headquarters), in siding with the Germany-based, multinational pesticide corporation, calls for SCOTUS to take on the case, which could lead to a prohibition on state-level failure-to-warn claims based on the arguments laid out in the amicus brief. This move sets the stage for SCOTUS to undermine the main legal argument used to hold pesticide corporations accountable for their harmful products, sending Bayer’s stock price to skyrocket 12 percentage points between December 2 and December 3 after the decision was made public. As of May 2025, Bayer has already paid at least 10 billion dollars in jury verdicts and settlements to cancer victims who have attributed their diagnoses to the use of Bayer/Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer products, according to Lawsuit Information Center. Two previous petitions […]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 18, 2025)  With pesticide manufacturers pushing to stop cancer victims (and others suffering adverse effects) from suing them under longstanding ”failure to warn law,“ U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is proposing to uphold this unequivocal right to protection. Senator Booker has introduced the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act (S. 2324) to protect the rights of farmers and consumers to hold pesticide manufacturers responsible for the harm caused by their toxic products. This effort comes in the wake of congressional and state legislative attacks on “failure-to-warn” liability claims that are taking place in response to extraordinary jury verdicts against Bayer/Monsanto for harm caused by glyphosate weed killer products like Roundup.ᵀᴹ 📣 Beyond Pesticides, with allied organizations across the U.S., is asking the public to “Tell your U.S. Senator to co-sponsor S. 2324, the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act.” This bill will amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1972 (FIFRA) to create a federal right of action for anyone who is harmed by a toxic pesticide.  Despite growing peer-reviewed scientific evidence linking widely used pesticides to a host of health harms, including cancers, birth defects, endocrine disruption, Parkinson’s disease, and infertility, the chemical industry and its allies in elective office are pushing to deny victims access to […]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 4, 2025) Comments on EPA proposal to bring back controversial use of herbicide dicamba due by Saturday, September 6, 2025, at 11:59 PM ET. With more than 90 percent of soybeans (also corn and the most common species of cotton) planted in varieties genetically engineered to be herbicide-tolerant, the agrichemical industry and industrial agribusiness are lining up to bring back agricultural spraying of the controversial weed killer dicamba—linked to crop damage associated with the chemical’s drifting off the target farms. The courts in 2020 and 2024 vacated EPA’s registration authorizing “over-the-top” (OTT) spraying of dicamba, leading to these uses being stopped in the 2025 growing season. (See Daily News.)              Genetically engineered crops, widely adopted in 1996 with Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant (Roundup Ready) soybean seeds and plants, have been plagued by weed resistance to the weed killers, movement of genetic material, chemical drift, and health and environmental hazards associated with pesticide exposure. Despite the problems and escalating herbicide use in chemical-dependent no-till (no tillage) agriculture, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have facilitated the astronomical growth of a genetically engineered food system. The industry makes the environmental argument that less […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2025) The pesticide manufacturer Syngenta has settled several lawsuits in federal courts in Pennsylvania and Illinois in recent months and is seeking a global settlement with over 6,000 litigants in order to avoid nationwide trials linking their weed killer paraquat to Parkinson’s Disease, according to reporting by The New Lede and The Guardian, respectively. Internal Syngenta documents released by these news outlets in a report dubbed The Paraquat Papers indicate that the company was aware of scientific evidence linking paraquat to Parkinson’s and attempted to quash research efforts to disclose the evidence.   These lawsuits were filed on behalf of former farmers and agricultural workers who went on to be diagnosed with neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s Disease, after using paraquat-based herbicide products for long periods of time. This litigation comes at a time when pesticide manufacturers across the board are facing increased scrutiny and subsequent financial repercussions. Simultaneously, their allies in Congress are revamping their efforts to shield chemical manufacturers from “failure to warn” lawsuits and establish federal preemption of local state governments’ ability to regulate pesticides more stringently than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Many of the paraquat lawsuits in federal courts, known as multidistrict […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 21, 2025) Beyond Pesticides is asking every member of the U.S. Representatives to voice their opposition in advance of a vote as early as Tuesday, July 22 on a provision before the House Appropriations Committee—in the Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill—that shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use and limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides. This is a fight to protect farmers’ and consumers’ right to sue pesticide manufacturers for misbranding products and their failure to warn product users. The language before the Committee is in Section 453 of the bill passed last week by the subcommittee on a straight party-line vote, with Republicans supporting the bill language. Beyond Pesticides is also asking Congress members to remove section 507, which prohibits EPA action on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), including fluorinated pesticides.  Update from July 21, 2025, at 4 PM: ⏰ Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) moved forward with amendments to strike sections 453 and 507 of the FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill, which is a provision that provides immunity for pesticide manufacturers from farmer and consumer lawsuits seeking compensation from product harm. Update from July 23, 2025, at 10 AM: The FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill passed out of […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 3-4, 2025) On this Independence Day, Beyond Pesticides calls for holistic solutions that, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, move the nation to ensure “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The founders of the United States were aware of the existential threat of corruption to democratic institutions. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, warned in Federalist No. 68 of The Federalist Papers that the presidency could be overtaken by a despotic figure without adequate safeguards. James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, in Federalist No. 10 speaks to the danger that factions—defined as a group of people or entities “… who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community”—impose on the general public, if not checked by safeguards in the country’s political system. The foundational principles in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have been challenged under the current administration and in the U.S. Congress. Communities are facing a fourfold attack on these principles and the centuries-old promise of the nation: […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 10, 2025) An industry-led campaign to quash lawsuits against chemical manufacturers because of their “failure to warn” about the hazards of their pesticide products has failed to move forward in nine state legislatures with significant GOP majorities (Iowa, Missouri, Idaho, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Wyoming, Montana, and Oklahoma). As the Making America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission released its first report to assess the root causes of childhood diseases and adverse health conditions, there continues to be an ongoing fight among forces within the Trump Administration on whether pesticides should even be mentioned. (See here for The New York Times coverage.) As federal funding cuts make their way through the Budget Reconciliation process, communities around the country are calling on their elected officials to protect their right to sue pesticide manufacturers with failure-to-warn claims; in an era of deregulation and ongoing failure of our regulatory agencies to assess potential associated harms, advocates demand the preservation of this legal right.  Status Report on State-Level Legislation  The only state that has active legislation, as of today’s writing, is North Carolina. The failure-to-warn language was inserted into the annual state Farm Bill package (SB 639) in Section 19, leading to public outcry in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on […]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 17, 2025) A literature review in Reproductive Sciences finds glyphosate (GLY) and glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) impact women’s reproductive health, adding to the long list of documented harm from this widely used weed killer. The authors note, “Considering the widespread use of GLY, the controversy regarding its endocrine-disrupting potential and reproductive toxicity, and the innumerable lawsuits filed against Bayer and Monsanto by consumers for morbidities related to Roundup™ exposure, the purpose of this review is to summarize the current literature on the potential adverse effects of GLY and GBHs on the female reproductive tract and discuss possible clinical implications on reproductive health outcomes, including polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, and female fertility.”  Glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), the primary metabolite (breakdown product) of GLY, are found throughout the environment in soil and water, as well as in samples of blood, urine, seminal plasma, and breast milk. Studies have detected residues in farmworkers, as well as “in the urine of 60–80% of the general public in the USA, including pregnant women and children.” (See studies here, here, and here.) The ubiquitous use of GLY and GBH, and subsequent persistence, threatens the health and well-being of all.  Previous studies have […]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 1, 2025) With the second largest award of nearly $2.1 billion (see reporting on largest), a jury in Georgia state court on March 21 found the pesticide manufacturer Bayer/Monsanto guilty of causing a man’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after use of the company’s glyphosate-based weedkiller RoundupTM product. The jury’s award includes $65 million in compensatory and $2 billion in punitive damages, as reported by the Associated Press and Courtroom View Network. This verdict in Barnes v. Monsanto (2025) comes amid a concerted effort by Bayer and other chemical and agribusiness groups to take away the main legal argument, “failure-to-warn,” for the type of litigation that pesticide exposure victims have commonly used to hold companies accountable. This is happening as Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia considers signing into state law a pesticide immunity bill that will prevent future litigation like this in the state. In a deregulatory environment, the courts and state governments are viewed as critical backstops, given the dismantling of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory apparatus and extremely limited Congressional oversight. History of Litigation Bayer has lost almost all of the cases filed against it for compensation and punitive damages associated with the plaintiffs’ charge that […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 26, 2025) State legislation to quash lawsuits against chemical manufacturers because of their “failure to warn” about the hazards of their pesticide products is moving forward in seven state legislatures (Iowa, Missouri, Idaho, Florida, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Oklahoma) across the United States. After three bills failed to pass (Mississippi, Wyoming, and Montana) and one bill is awaiting signature into law by the Governor’s Office (Georgia), Beyond Pesticides, working with a broad coalition, is pushing back. (See Beyond Pesticides’ Failure to Warn resource hub, background materials, and opportunities for action.) If adopted, the “immunity from litigation” legislation would set a dangerous precedent for state common law claims against any manufacturers of products with toxic ingredients. Currently, pesticide labels under federal and state law generally do not warn of potential chronic effects, such as cancer, reproductive effects, infertility, birth defects, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular damage, and more (see Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database), but warn of acute effects, such as rashes, headaches, stinging eyes, and more. After years of large jury awards, preemptive settlements, and lost appeals in cases involving exposure to the weedkiller glyphosate, Bayer/Monsanto is trying to stop the company’s financial hemorrhaging with a state-by-state strategy […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 15, 2025) There is robust scientific literature that unpacks the adverse human health effects of pesticide exposure, however immunological impacts do not receive adequate attention in regulatory review processes, according to an in-depth literature review. In a piece published in Frontiers in Immunology (2024) critiquing recent peer-reviewed scientific studies, as well as unpublished research produced by the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine in partnership with the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina, researchers assess immune system effects of pesticide exposure, which creates the conditions for deadly health conditions including various forms of cancer. The focus of this study, according to the authors, is “to critically review fundamental aspects of toxicological studies conducted on PPPs [Plant Protection Products] to provide a clearer understanding of the risks associated with exposure to these compounds on human health.” PPPs are pesticide products that contain more than one active ingredient, and can include synergistic ingredients that supercharge them alongside inert ingredients that pesticide companies are not legally required to disclose under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), but are often manipulated biologically and chemically active. Most studies analyze the toxicological impacts of active ingredients in isolation rather […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 19, 2024) As The New York Times reported last month, the government in South Africa declared a national emergency—23 children died and nearly 900 people were sickened from pesticide poisoning in Johannesburg’s Soweto township. The illnesses and fatalities have been traced to small amounts of highly neurotoxic pesticides, including the insecticides terbufos and aldicarb, found in local food items. These chemicals, described by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as “street pesticides,” are being increasingly used (legally and illegally) for pest infestations in the townships and informal settlements of South Africa’s poorest communities, where poverty and inadequate waste collection exacerbates the pest management challenges. Without formal electricity, running water, or municipal garbage collection, many residents rely on highly toxic pesticides for pest infestations in their homes and makeshift markets, resulting in food inadvertently being contaminated with pesticides.  The announcement highlights the dangers of allowing these highly toxic agricultural chemicals to be used in farming, with tragic consequences for vulnerable communities when they are diverted for use in urban settings. This tragic situation also draws attention to the elevated threat that pesticides pose when stringent enforcement mechanisms are not in place to ensure compliance with pesticide restrictions, even with […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 18, 2024) A bombshell investigation conducted by Canada’s National Observer finds that Bayer, which acquired the Monsanto chemical company in 2018, colluded with environmental and public health regulators in Canada to obstruct a proposed neonicotinoid insecticide ban originally introduced in 2018. Advocates were stunned back in 2021 when Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA)—the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—reversed its decision to phase out imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam by 2023. The weaponization of scientific institutions and regulatory processes is commonplace in the U.S. context, with U.S. Right to Know publishing a report earlier this year on the corrupting impact of pesticide manufacturers at the Entomological Society of America 2023 annual meeting. (See Daily News here.) There are numerous Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports signaling EPA corruption and failures, including persisting industry influence in the cancer risk assessment process, inadequate leadership in addressing community harms of a former creosote-treated wood preservative plant turned Superfund site in Pensacola, Florida, and failure to protect the public from endocrine-disrupting chemicals, to name several examples. In a recent press release, the David Suzuki Foundation, alongside numerous medical, legal, and civil society organizations, is calling on Health Canada […]

Image: Art Page submission from Max Sano, “Maryland Farmland“ (Beyond Pesticides, August 27, 2024) A recent entry in the Civil Eats investigative series, “Chemical Capture: The Power and Impact of the Pesticide Industry,” unpacks the troubling coordination between carbon markets, toxic pesticide products, and industrial agriculture to mutually reframe their business models under the guise of climate-smart agriculture. In recent years, powerful agribusiness corporations—including Corteva (chlorpyrifos) and Bayer/Monsanto (glyphosate)—have made significant progress in becoming leading providers of carbon markets based in the United States. Advocates, farmers, and communities view the misrepresentation of carbon offsets and trading as a climate solution in a strategy that undermines proven alternative systems of agriculture and land management (aka organic). The underlying concept of carbon markets began with the emissions trading program as a result of the Kyoto Protocol back in the 1990s. “Emissions trading, as set out in Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows countries that have emission units to spare—emissions permitted them but not “used”—to sell this excess capacity to countries that are over their targets,” according to the United Nations. Based on Civil Eats’ reporting, Bayer/Monsanto with Climate FieldView and Corteva with its Carbon Solutions program, cite their pesticide products as […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 25, 2024) On July 10, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) does not preempt pesticide exposure victims’ state law claims against pesticide manufacturers, based on reporting from The New Lede. This decision builds on years of judicial precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that protects individuals’ right to use failure-to-warn claims against producers of toxic pesticides, including Bayer-Monsanto. The importance of judicial review is critical to protecting the public against public health impacts of toxic pesticide use in the context of last month’s SCOTUS decision ending Chevron Doctrine, and with it the end of deferring to federal regulatory agencies on ambiguities in statutory mandates. A growing coalition of environmental and public health advocates, organic farmers, trial attorneys, farmworkers, and physicians are united in pushing back against a concerted effort by industry and its allies to attack victims’ ability to sue under “failure-to-warn” through the Farm Bill, state legislatures, and the proposed federal budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Oregon Court of Appeals In 2022, a local trial court in Oregon ruled in favor of Monsanto on a lawsuit initiated by Jackson County residents Larry and […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 1, 2024) Comments on proposed new dicamba uses are due Friday, July 5 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting public comments until July 5 on whether it should allow the expanded use of the weed killer dicamba, which has been associated with adverse impacts related to its propensity to drift off of the target application site. The comment period addresses a BASF chemical company proposal for additional food use of a dicamba product on dicamba-tolerant cotton and dicamba-tolerant soybeans. (See Beyond Pesticides’ comments.) This application is similar to Bayer CropScience’s application for XtendiMax®, for which Beyond Pesticides submitted comments in June. The proposed label for BASF’s Engenia® allows for application preplant, at-planting, preemergence, and postemergence (in-crop) for broadleaf weeds. >> Tell EPA to ban use of dicamba and other drift-prone pesticides. The U.S. Supreme Court Reversal This proposal is under consideration on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision on June 28 that reverses a 40-year old decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which created a deference to federal agencies in the rulemaking process. In the dissent to this 6-3 decision of the court, the dissenters focus on the role of executive […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 14, 2024) The influence of the chemical industry over public policy and regulation, especially in agriculture, is glaringly obvious and has little popular support, yet no one can seem to do anything about it. Numerous analyses have detailed the ways this influence is applied—through lobbying and political donations including dark money; industry experts named to regulatory agency scientific advisory boards; and the massive public relations machines that create and sustain public uncertainty using the tobacco industry playbook revealed by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt. A more insidious tendril of industry influence is explained in U.S. Right to Know’s (USRTK) report, released this month, on pesticide manufacturers’ infiltration of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). The report, “Anatomy of a science meeting: How controversial pesticide research all but vanished from a major conference,” examines the ESA’s 2023 annual meeting—its program, sponsorships, presentations, panelists, poster sessions, meet-and-greets, budget, revenue sources, and other aspects of the event. What is revealed is a systematic and comprehensive industry presence throughout the society and its meeting. A direct consequence is the near-elimination of any scientific presentations addressing the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on insects, particularly bees. […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 4, 2024) A study published in the most recent edition of the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety documents for the first time the presence of the herbicide glyphosate in human sperm. The study looked at 128 French men with an average age of 36 years who tested positive for glyphosate in their blood. Seventy-three out of the 128 men were found to also have glyphosate in their seminal plasma. Not only that, the amount of glyphosate in seminal plasma was nearly four times higher than what was detected in the blood.   Methods  The study involved a population of 128 infertile French men from whom seminal and blood plasma samples were collected. The study was conducted at the “Pole Santé Léonard de Vinci” medical center, located centrally near Tours, France. This region is recognized for its urban characteristics as well as being a major agricultural hub, particularly for grain and wine production. The study authors note, “This area reflects the common herbicide exposure in France” and the district ranks third highest in terms of pesticide purchases. While additional qualitative data was collected, only 47 of 128 participants fully completed a questionnaire about their profession, diet (organic or […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 3, 2024) Environmental advocates continue to raise concerns about the Farm Bill (H.R.8467—Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024) that emerged from the House Agriculture Committee on May 23 with provisions they say will allow the escalation of environmental threats and then insure big agriculture commodity producers for losses attributable to those environmental disasters through an expansion of USDA’s crop insurance program. Through this taxpayer supported program, USDA covers farm revenue losses due to “natural causes such as drought, excessive moisture [e.g., floods], hail, wind, frost, insects, and disease. . .” Petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer use in chemical-intensive land management and agricultural production contributes to the climate emergency and associated weather, insect, and plant disease threats. Advocates point out that the House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill reduces environmental protections by (i) preempting local and state government authority to allow more restrictive standards at the municipal level, (ii) taking away the right to sue pesticide manufacturers and allied companies for a failure to fully disclose adverse effects of the products they produce or use, and (iii) weakening the regulatory process intended to protect endangered species and biodiversity from pesticides.   Tell Your U.S. Representative and Senators To Support […]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 31, 2024) Among the many promises that have been made by agribusiness to farmers and consumers, the glories of crops genetically engineered (GE) to resist pests stand out. GE tools—genes—were touted as “natural,” and promised to reduce the use of toxic pesticides. The first such plants incorporating DNA or RNA from other organisms hit the market in the 1990s. Today more than 70% of all GE organisms are engineered to tolerate herbicides, and the overwhelming majority of corn, soybean and cotton varieties are engineered to to be toxic to insects. See Beyond Pesticides’ backgrounder on GE here. Despite a dramatic increase in the use of herbicides and the fast development of weed and insect resistance to plant incorporated pesticides, this month the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly released a document entitled “The Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology – Plan for Regulatory Reform under the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology.” It responds to a 2022 executive order by President Biden to “accelerate biotechnology innovation” and “support the safe use of biotechnology products” by using a “science- and risk-based, predictable, efficient, […]