Eighteen non-organic produce industry groups have written the Agriculture Secretary in an an effort to muffle the impact of the upcoming USDA report on pesticide residues. The Environmental Working Group uses the annual data to highlight the "Dirty Dozen" fruits and vegetables.
"Washington has become the first state to ban pavement sealants that contain coal tar. The state made the move in response to recent studies that show runoff from macadam treated with these products can pollute lakes and streams."
"High levels of pesticide exposure in pregnant women have been linked to lower IQs in their children, according to three separate US studies."
"The United Nations has suggested three pesticides and three industrial chemicals be put on a trade "watch list" because they can threaten human health and the environment, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Friday."
Questions are mounting about the possible role of a new family of pesticides, the neonicotinoides, in the "colony collapse disorder" that is decimating commercial honeybees. Will EPA reconsider its approval of those pesticides?
"With more trash coming into Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore, dangerous air emissions are on the rise, a Sunday Times analysis of state records found. The review also found the state Department of Environmental Protection relies upon the landfills to monitor air quality and report problems."
"Many agricultural pesticides – including some previously untested and commonly found in food – disrupt male hormones, according to new tests conducted by British scientists. The researchers strongly recommended that all pesticides in use today be screened to check if they block testosterone, which is critical to men’s and boys’ reproductive health. Thirty out of 37 pesticides tested by the University of London altered male hormones, including 16 that had no known hormonal activity until now. Most are fungicides applied to fruit and vegetable crops, including strawberries and lettuce."
"A team of pediatricians has called for a ban on naphthalene, used in mothballs, after the death of a baby and catastrophic brain injuries to two others."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tight restrictions on using people as test subjects — or, as critics have put it, guinea pigs — in pesticide research."
"Environmental conservation groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to force it to tighten regulation of pesticide use, arguing that the agency was not consulting wildlife officials."
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