The headline in a March 2018 story in the Western Farm Press reads “The alfalfa industry wants more favorable farm policy for its forage crop.” It argues that alfalfa doesn’t get the support and respect it deserves, given that by value, it is the number three field crop grown in the U.S., behind corn and […]
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Ken Roseboro’s May 11, 2018 story in Civil Eats is a sober reminder that pesticides are toxic, some people have been exposed to levels that almost certainly trigger or contribute to disease, and that the most worrisome exposure episodes often occur as a result of unusual circumstances. “These Farmers Switched to Organic After Pesticides Made […]
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Part I: A Tipping Point for Organic Apples in the Pacific Northwest? The remarkable growth since 2016 in organic apple production in Washington State has received almost no attention in the media, food industry, and public health communities. I paste in below a recent update from two Washington State University faculty members who follow closely […]
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A King’s College London team led by Robin Mesnage and Michael Antoniou has published in Nature Scientific Reports a first-ever metabolomic analysis of the impact of very, very low chronic exposures to formulated glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) on rat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Hygeia Analytics is pleased to provide access to the full Mesnage et al. […]
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Charles Benbrook, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University Blog Post, September 2012 A comprehensive paper on the nutritional quality and safety of conventional versus organic food was published in the September 4, 2012 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine (Smith-Spangler et al., Vol. 157, Number 5: pages 349–369). The Stanford University Medical […]
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Fresh off the printer is a new paper featured in Nature: Scientific Reports that describes important new research by an international consortium of scientists led by Robin Mesnage from the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King’s College of London. It appears that for the first time, clear evidence has been published of subtle metabolic […]
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A team based at the University of Washington in Seattle has published an important study showing that in school-age children, a diet composed of predominantly organic food “…provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorous (OP) pesticides.” Twenty-three children were enrolled in the study, which included three phases of testing for OP […]
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The National Institute of Health’s Agricultural Health Study has been underway for over a decade. It has produced valuable data on the impacts of pesticides on human health, and established linkages between pesticide use and cancer and neurological disorders. In an important paper in “Diabetes Care,” a team of government scientists found that pregnant women […]
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This study reports some remarkable numbers quantifying the economic impact of exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Pesticides cause the second largest impact — some $44 billion — right behind flame retardants. While worrisome enough, the huge increases now occurring in herbicide, insecticide, and fungicide use on farms growing the three major genetically engineered (GE, or GMO) crops (corn, soybeans, cotton) is bound to markedly increase exposures, reproductive problems, birth defects, and a host of life-long health problems. Hopefully sooner rather than later, the agricultural commodity groups and farmers will rediscover prevention-based Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and start to reduce their…
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