"U.S. farmers are using more hazardous pesticides to fight weeds and insects due largely to heavy adoption of genetically modified crop technologies that are sparking a rise of 'superweeds' and hard-to-kill insects, according to a newly released study."
"Rachel Carson wasn't someone you'd expect to spark a movement. She was a quiet, petite woman who grew up poor, lived most of her life with her mother and relished solitary walks along the beach, watching birds and fish. Yet 50 years ago Thursday, this marine biologist published Silent Spring, widely credited with spurring the modern environmental movement."
"On June 4, 1963, less than a year after the controversial environmental classic 'Silent Spring' was published, its author, Rachel Carson, testified before a Senate subcommittee on pesticides. She was 56 and dying of breast cancer. She told almost no one. She'd already survived a radical mastectomy. Her pelvis was so riddled with fractures that it was nearly impossible for her to walk to her seat at the wooden table before the Congressional panel. To hide her baldness, she wore a dark brown wig."
"British scientists have shot down a study on declining honeybee populations that triggered a French ban on a pesticide made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta."
"Consumer Reports is urging U.S. limits for arsenic in rice after tests of more than 60 popular products -- from Kellogg's Rice Krispies to Gerber infant cereal -- showed most contained some level of inorganic arsenic, a known human carcinogen."
Federal and state health officials say that pesticide spraying for adult mosquitoes has reduced risk of West Nile virus by killing specific percentages of mosquitoes. When confronted with Freedom of Information Act requests for the data to back up those claims, they do not seem to be able to find any.
"Lawn product company Scotts Miracle-Gro Co will pay $12.5 million in criminal fines and civil penalties for illegally including insecticides in bird food products and for other violations, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday."
"Increasing misuse of chemicals is causing health and environmental damage especially in emerging economies and governments must do more to carry out a promised clean-up by 2020, a United Nations report said on Wednesday."
"NORTHAMPTON, Mass. --- The toxins being sprayed on the grounds of the city's public schools may surprise some people."
"Beekeepers in the U.S., looking for a way to stop or slow the die-offs devastating their industry, are watching their options dwindle along with the bees. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected a petition [PDF] that beekeepers and environmental groups filed back in March asking EPA to stop sales of clothianidin, a pesticide believed to be harmful to bees. EPA said use of the chemical does not present an “imminent hazard” — the requirement to suspend registration of a pesticide."
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