The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a key order to the EPA on April 29, 2021 on next steps in the regulation of chlorpyrifos. This is the first of several expected court actions impacting regulation of high-risk pesticides. Dr. Benbrook has been involved with chlorpyrifos risk assessment, use, human health effects, and regulation since […]
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By: Chuck Benbrook A milestone in my career occurred on October 14, 2020 with the publication of “The dietary risk index system: a tool to track pesticide dietary risks” in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Health. This paper was written with my friend and co-author Dr. Donald Davis. It is the culmination of work started in 1985, […]
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First, the back story. Over the years, the USDA has almost always sided with pesticide manufacturers and farmers, in opposition to EPA efforts to curtail or end the use of high-risk pesticides. The arguments advanced by the USDA are always basically the same: There are no viable alternatives to this pesticide. Consumers will face food […]
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Does the excerpt below from the September 10th issue of Politico’s Morning Agriculture e-newsletter sound familiar? It echoes sentiments on Hygeia in an “Endnote” to our August 20, 2018 post on the Lee Johnson verdict and award, which states — Endnote: The first half of August 2018 will go down in the history of pesticide use and regulation […]
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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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The pesticide enforcement news today is surreal. Reuters reports on February 15, 2018 that Amazon is paying a $1.2 million fine, because a third-party vendor offering pesticides on Amazon slipped in some foreign-made products not registered by the U.S. EPA. Clearly illegal, clearly a slip up, which Amazon corrected immediately, and forcefully, as clear in […]
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Maharashtra is one of the major cotton growing areas in India. Most of the cotton planted in recent years has expressed the Bt gene to control certain insects, but a combination of factors including resistance has eroded its efficacy. Between higher priced seed and the need to apply extra insecticide, cotton farmers in the region […]
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The new EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, announced March 29, 2017 that the agency will retain the existing registrations of the high-risk insecticide chlorpyrifos (aka Lorsban). Eric Lipton of the New York Times covered the announcement, and the EPA press release and the full text of the decision is posted on the EPA website. As the New York […]
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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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Some pesticides can disrupt the development of the brain and nervous system at extremely low doses. A study published in October 2006 provides key new insights into how and why (Slotkin et al., 2006). The organophosphate (OP) class of insecticides includes some of the most dangerous pesticides still in widespread use. This family of chemistry […]
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