Free Republic

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Good news for men who farm U.S. fields. Regular exposure to pesticides used commonly on the farm does not appear to increase the risk of heart attack. As part of the Agricultural Health Study, between 1993 and 1997, researchers asked more than 54,000 male farmers what pesticides they used regularly, how much time they spent using tractors and other farm equipment, and whether they raised poultry or other livestock. Dr. Jane A. Hoppin, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and colleagues surveyed roughly 32,000 of these men...

Common herbs and spices show promise as an environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional pesticides, scientists have told a major US conference. They have spent a decade researching the insecticidal properties of rosemary, thyme, clove and mint. They could become a key weapon against insect pests in organic agriculture, the researchers say, as the industry attempts to satisfy demand. The "plant essential oils" have a broad range of action against bugs. Some kill them outright while others repel them. Details were presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington DC.....

Shoppers face an array of choices on fruit but little guidance on which type to pick. Expensive organic? Pricey farmers' market? Cheap ones from the grocery store? Cost is certainly important. But there are essential numbers that go beyond the price tag. Which contain the highest levels of pesticides?

Culture/Society Editorial EditorialSource: The Telegraph (U.K.)Published: 07/19/2001 Author: Terence KealeyPosted on 07/18/2001 16:55:32 PDT by Pokey78 THE World Health Organisation, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the UN environmental programme and its development programme, USAID, and almost all the other international representatives of the great and the good now campaign against DDT. But, perversely, the Third World still uses it. To those who believe that America under George W Bush and his gas-guzzling, permafrost-drilling accomplices is the source of all global pollution, this Third World defection is disappointing. Where are the virtuous blacks when we need them? DDT was introduced...

Owls and kestrels are being employed as agricultural pest controllers in the Middle East. Many farmers are installing nest boxes to encourage the birds, which hunt the crop-damaging rodents. In Israel, where there is a drive to reduce the use of toxic chemical pesticides, this has been turned into a government-funded national programme. Scientists and conservation charities from Jordan and Palestine have joined the scheme. According to the charity BirdLife International, hundreds of birds of prey - including many endangered species - have been killed in Israel through eating rodents containing poisonous "rodenticides" sprayed on to crop fields. But scientists...

IMMOKALEE — The children with the medical problems - a malformed ear, a cleft palate, a brain defect - live tucked away in trailers and cabins down dusty roads in this poor farming town. Their immigrant parents do some of the country's hardest and most humble work, picking tomatoes for a per-bucket price. They are sometimes called the "invisible people," here one day and gone with the harvest the next. But now that low profile is about to change. Lawyers have filed a trio of suits claiming the children were born this way because their parents labored in the fields...

Brussels A ban on pesticides agreed by the European Parliament could make vegetable production impossible and result in a dramatic drop of wheat yields, farmers have said. The National Farmers’ Union said growing carrots, parsnips and onions would be more difficult because the herbicides that MEPs voted to phase out killed weeds that affect these crops. A total of 22 substances will be banned over the next decade as part of an EU plan to remove chemicals that are thought to pose risks to human health and damage water quality. Fears have been raised of a 20 per cent reduction...

It's been a long time coming for veterans whose health complaints have been met with skepticism, but a federal panel has determined that Gulf War syndrome is not only real, it is tied to two causes: exposure to pyridostigmine bromide and certain pesticides during the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War. Members of the federal Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses that wrote a 450+ page report also called for research efforts to shift away from establishing the existence of a Gulf War syndrome to focus on treatment and diagnostic tests. “There's no way to say that [Gulf War illness]...

(NaturalNews) German government researchers have concluded that a bestselling Bayer pesticide is responsible for the recent massive die-off of honeybees across the country's Baden-Württemberg region. In response, the government has banned an entire family of pesticides, fueling accusations that pesticides may be responsible for the current worldwide epidemic of honeybee die-offs. Researchers found buildup of the pesticide clothianidin in the tissues of 99 percent of dead bees in Baden-Württemberg state. The German Research Center for Cultivated Plants concluded that nearly 97 percent of honeybee deaths had been caused directly by contact with the insecticide."It can unequivocally be concluded that a...

The vision of airplanes rumbling slowly over San Francisco, spraying a pesticide mist on parks and playgrounds, has now mobilized one of the most effective lobbying groups in the world. Moms. The California Department of Food and Agriculture's plan to eradicate the light brown apple moth with aerial spraying over the city this summer was already in an uphill fight. But when 100 or so mothers and kids showed up at City Hall on Monday afternoon with signs like "Keep Your Spray Off My Baby," it was clear that the battle had entered a new phase. "Nothing gets people more...

Biological switch triggers E. coli to swim towards chemical. Researchers have hacked into the navigation system of the bacterium Escherichia coli , causing it to hunt down a widely used herbicide called atrazine. The finding could help improve efforts to clean up the environment using biological tricks. Escherichia coli has receptor proteins on its cell surface that can identify chemicals of interest, enabling the bacterium to follow a chemical along its concentration gradient to its source. The recognition information is passed along the cell, eventually triggering its whip-like tail, or flagellum, to rotate either one way to move forward or...

Ever since the World Health Organization reversed the environmentalist-promoted ban on DDT in 2006, eco-activists have scrambled to devise new ways to malign the life-saving insecticide in order to salvage their badly marred reputation. Their latest effort involves touting a new study supposedly linking DDT exposure in adolescent girls with increased breast cancer risk in later life. The study was authored by researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine — an institution infamous for alarmist research on asbestos and 9-11 rescue workers — and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal that seems to operate as a refuge...

(MAYUGE) - If you are a farmer, you may want to think twice about flushing your urine down the toilet. Urine may be a waste product but it also has many uses, and the best part of it is that it comes with no price tag. Farmers in various parts of the country use human urine as fertilizers and to fight crop diseases. The method started in Baitambogwe Village in Mayuge District but has now spread to over 21 districts. Through knowledge sharing via telephone Short Message System commonly known as SMS, farmers in Baitambogwe are propagating the method to...

Last year, the World Health Organization reversed a 25-year-old policy and recommended using the pesticide DDT to fight malaria in the Third World. A new study published in the public health journal, PLoS ONE, provides more evidence that the decision was long overdue. The U.S. and Europe solved their malaria problem a half-century ago by employing DDT, but the mosquito-borne disease remains endemic to the lowland tropics of South America, Asia and Africa, where each year a half-billion people are infected and more than a million die. Despite those staggering numbers, radical environmental groups like the Pesticide Action Network continue...

LOS ANGELES, July 30 (UPI) -- A study by California state health officials links farm fields sprayed with certain pesticides to an increase in the number of autistic children. The study, which targets organochlorine pesticides, is to be published on Monday, The Los Angeles Times reported.

I don't like to buy organic food products, and avoid them at all cost. It is a principled decision reached through careful consideration of effects of organic production practices on animal welfare and the environment. I buy regular food, rather than organic, for the benefit of my family. I care deeply about food being plentiful, affordable and safe. I grew up on a dairy farm, where my chores included caring for the calves and scrubbing the milking facilities. As a teenager, I was active in Future Farmers of America, and after college I took a job in Washington, D.C., on...

For Rachel Carson admirers, it has not been a silent spring. They’ve been celebrating the centennial of her birthday with paeans to her saintliness. A new generation is reading her book in school — and mostly learning the wrong lesson from it. If students are going to read “Silent Spring” in science classes, I wish it were paired with another work from that same year, 1962, titled “Chemicals and Pests.” It was a review of “Silent Spring” in the journal Science written by I. L. Baldwin, a professor of agricultural bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin. He didn’t have Ms....

...FDA inspectors report tainted food imports intended for American humans are being rejected with increasing frequency because they are filthy, are contaminated with pesticides and tainted with carcinogens, bacteria and banned drugs. ..257 refusals of Chinese products were recorded in April... Refused by the FDA in April because they were "filthy": * salted bean curd cubes in brine with chili and sesame oil * dried apple * dried peach * dried pear * dried round bean curd * dried mushroom * olives * frozen bay scallops * frozen Pacific cod * sardines * frozen seafood mix * fermented bean curd...

Adding to China’s recent problems of food safety is now seafood contamination. As the world’s largest producer and exporter of fish and fish products, China may need to more closely monitor shellfish contaminant levels, because contaminants are finding their way into seafood. A new study found samples from markets that contained concentrations of contaminants high enough to pose threats to human health. The study is published in the latest issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Organochlorine pesticides such as DDT can accumulate in top predators, including humans. Though these pesticides were officially banned in 1983, China had been using them...

LUBBOCK, Texas — The battle against red fire ants has plagued farmers, ranchers and regular folks for decades. Now it seems the reviled pests could be in for some sickness of their own. Researchers have pinpointed a naturally occurring virus that kills fire ants, which arrived in the U.S. in the 1930s and now cause $6 billion in damage annually nationwide, including about $1.2 billion in Texas. The virus caught the attention of U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers in Florida in 2002. The agency is now seeking commercial partners to develop the virus into a pesticide to control fire ants....

CHARLOTTE -- A University-area restaurant employee was treated for minor injuries following an explosion Wednesday night. An employee of the Thai House, in the Grand Promenade shopping center, stayed after hours to do some cleaning and the explosion was triggered when the employee set off 20 aerosol pesticide defoggers too close to the pilot light of a gas stove. “When it was contacted by the pilot lights on the gas equipment, it caused sort of a spontaneous explosion,” said property manager Mark Hanna. Firefighters at Station 27, which is within walking distance of the restaurant, say they felt the explosion....

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it was recommending new restrictions on thousands of uses of pesticides because of their adverse effects on public health. “Whether planting crops, de-bugging a home, working in the garden or just sitting down at the dinner table, Americans can now be assured the pesticides used in the U.S. meet the highest health standards in the world,” Stephen L. Johnson, the agency administrator, said in a statement announcing the completion of a 10-year review, ordered by Congress, of pesticide chemicals. The study, which focused on more than 230 chemicals...

Organic food consumers are as careless of the environment as the drivers piloting those massive Humvees around our city streets. Both are wasting money and natural resources to gain snob appeal–with no other benefits

See for example this thread first. I first saw this in Chemical & Engineering News, lo! these many years ago (maybe 1984 time frame?), and claim no credit except for remembering it. A mosquito was heard to complain, "I fear they have addled my brain!" "The cause of my sorrow is para-dicholoro- diphenyl-trichloroethane!"

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...

Again, mature topic, recommended for sophomoric viewers only. :-) See for example this thread first. Which side will the DUmmies come down on? All Dems agree on saving the environment, but given the number of gender feminists, and sandal-clad, effeminate Euroweenies in the party, the purported side effects of pesticides might be too good to pass up! I just read a frightening report that pesticides can make men, ..."short". Enviros are mad but fem'nists are glad Politics, strange bedfellows, I retort!

Are synthetic chemicals responsible for male shortcomings?"Pesticides May Affect Penis Size, " runs the headline in the London Free Press. The first paragraph alarmingly reports that "A renowned U.S. scientist who has documented fertility and sex changes—including decreasing penis size—due to environmental contamination says he wouldn't apply pesticides on his own lawn." Whose sexual organs was the renowned scientist talking about? Alligator penises. Specifically, the penises of some American alligators that grew up in Florida's most polluted lake. In 1980 a massive industrial pesticide spill drained into Lake Apopka, contaminating it with high levels of pesticides with anti-androgenic activity. The...

ASSOCIATED PRESS FARGO, N.D. -- Preliminary results of a study of North Dakota farm children exposed to pesticides show they performed significantly lower than their peers on IQ tests, though their scores still are within a range considered normal. The study by University of North Dakota researchers involved two groups of children in the northern Red River Valley, one group living on or near an active farm or field, another living at least a mile away. Children living on or near farms tested an average of five points lower on standard IQ tests, said Patricia Moulton, an experimental psychologist at...

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you that, years ago in the 1980s, I worked for a producer of a particularly effective pesticide that was applied with nothing more toxic than water. It is now, like so many other pesticides, not available to pest control professionals because it was literally forced off the market by the Environmental Protection Agency that insisted millions of dollars of testing be repeated for its continued registration. The company decided it just wasn’t worth it. I have served as the public relations counselor to a state pest management association that began...

The bald eagle, the national bird which only a few decades ago appeared headed for extinction in the continental United States, is soaring once again.  A 40-year campaign to rescue the bald eagle from the deadly clutches of chemical poisoning has been, by all accounts, a remarkable success. The majestic bird had all but disappeared from the lower 48 states in the mid-1960s but is now flourishing -- so much so that the federal government is considering removing the bald eagle from its list of endangered species.Nowhere has that comeback been more dramatic than in New Jersey. The annual mid-winter...

Attorneys representing Carlitos Candelario, the Immokalee boy born 14 months ago without arms and legs, announced Wednesday they had filed suit against his parents' agricultural employer claiming the firm's negligence with pesticides caused the catastrophic birth defects. The suit claims that the employer, Ag-Mart Produce Inc., based in Plant City, failed "to provide reasonably safe conditions for the fetuses of its pregnant female workers and to warn of hazardous conditions" caused by pesticide use. The suit filed for the child's parents, Francisca Herrera, 19, and Abraham Candelario, 21, holds the company liable for medical and hospital costs, liftetime care costs,...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California violated the Clean Air Act when it decided nine years ago that no regulations were necessary to cut smog-forming compounds in farm and commercial pesticides, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's decision means that lawyers for environmental groups and the state will meet to discuss possible remedies for the pollution. Lawyers for both groups have been ordered to file briefs in 20 days. "The bottom line is that the state should have had regulations in place to have a 20 percent reduction of these emissions in five basins by this year," said...

Overview The Center For Disease Control 1999 Gulf War Syndrome Research Summary Report (click here to view and scroll to pdf page 10, or click here to for more details), states that animals fed the same drugs that were given to their 1992 Gulf War Personnel developed health problems that were significantly worse statistically than the sum of the incidence of symptoms when each pill was taken individually. The military personnel were given many pesticides, anti-viral, anti-chemical warfare, anti-biological warfare, and anti-parasite agents. These drugs were originally approved in studies that showed them to be safe when taken individually. In...

WENATCHEE — Pigeons were falling dead from the skies over downtown Wenatchee, and the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society got a flurry of calls. Was it the feared avian flu? No. The Chelan-Douglas Health District was preparing to ship some of the dead birds to a state health lab for testing when someone at the Coast Hotel and Wenatchee Center called to say the center had hired a pest-control company — the state-licensed Yakima office of St. Paul, Minn.-based EcoLab — to poison the birds. "This abatement kills a couple of birds and sends a message to the birds to not...

A friend has asked me to ask you all to "find information on the old formula which was used back in the 60’s for treating a house for termites etc. which the environmentalists stopped the pest control people from using ……………. It had diazamine or something like that in it…….2 chemicals is all it was…" Anyone know anything about this that can help? Thank you in advance.

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge here is ordering federal authorities to study whether 66 pesticides commonly used in agribusiness are jeopardizing the California red-legged frog, the frog believed to have inspired Mark Twain's fabled short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled Monday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must "consult" with biologists to determine whether, as environmentalists allege, the pesticides are harming the frog, which has lost about 70 percent of its numbers and was listed as a threatened species in 1996. The amphibian lives along coastal areas of California, the...

Noisy Spring Avoiding the West Nile virus. By Henry I. Miller The six-year-old U.S. outbreak of West Nile virus is a significant threat to public health and shows no signs of abating. Last year, there were more than 2,500 serious cases and 100 deaths. Though still early in the West Nile virus season (there is a time lag during which animals are infected, mosquitoes convey the virus to humans, and the virus incubates until symptoms occur), this year the mosquito-borne virus has been found in animal hosts (primarily birds) in 39 states, and has caused more than a hundred serious...

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to block the Environmental Protection Agency from using studies that expose people to pesticides when considering permits for new pest killers. By a 60-37 vote, the Senate approved a provision from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that would block the EPA from relying on such testing -- including 24 human pesticide experiments currently under review -- as it approves or denies pesticide applications. The Bush administration lifted a moratorium imposed in 1998 by the Clinton administration on using human testing for pesticide approvals. Under the change, political appointees are refereeing on a case-by-case basis any ethical...

Human rights issues continue to dominate the world stage. Ending "degrading treatment" of terrorists, the death penalty for murderers, family violence against women and policies against indigenous languages top the list at the UN Human Rights Commission, European Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The Euro Court alone has 78,000 rights cases on its docket. This February, President Bush met with the heroic, real-life manager of "Hotel Rwanda." He later went to Latvia, to recall the millions who died in wars, concentration camps, killing fields and genocidal conflicts over the past 65 years. Meanwhile, the U.S....

This month, the New Jersey Pest Management Association issued a news release to warn against the prospect of billions of mosquitoes and threat of West Nile Fever they pose. West Nile Fever arrived in New York City in 1999 and, within three years, it had spread to California. In Washington, an executive order was signed recently to insure that avian flu does not reach these shores and, when a single case of Mad Cow Disease was discovered, the border was shut to Canadian beef. When SAARS broke out in Red China a few years ago, it too was quickly quarantined....

Correction Appended When a president picks his administration officials, the opposing political party can't expect to be thrilled with the selections. Right now, Democrats in the Senate are trying to block the nominations of three men chosen by George W. Bush for important posts: John Bolton for United Nations ambassador, Stephen Johnson for head of the Environmental Protection Agency and Dr. Lester Crawford for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. They have excellent reasons for opposition in each case, but some reasons are more excellent than others. Mr. Bolton stands out because he is not only bad in a...

WASHINGTON, April 7 - Last fall, when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a $9 million study of how infants and toddlers are exposed to and affected by bug sprays, carpet cleaners and other pesticides and chemicals in their homes, it sought and found a generous partner in the American Chemistry Council, which generally seeks less stringent regulations for its members' products. The goal of the study, the agency said, was to "fill data gaps" in the scientific knowledge regulators use to make decisions about which pesticides can go on the nation's hardware shelves. The E.P.A. offered parents as much as...

Why was Carlitos born this way? He's one of three Immokalee babies who were born horribly disfigured to mothers and fathers who work together in Florida's fields. By John LantiguaPalm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 13, 2005 IMMOKALEE — Carlos Candelario, known as Carlitos, was born Dec. 17 without arms or legs.On Feb. 4, Jesus Navarrete, whose parents live about 100 feet away from Carlitos' family, was born with Pierre Robin syndrome. His jaw is underdeveloped, and that causes his tongue to fall into his throat, and he risks choking. Taylor Jones/The PostenlargeAGRICULTURAL RISK: Migrant worker Francisca Herrera says she worked...

The year 2000 was a time of plague for the South African town of Ndumo, on the border of Mozambique. That March, while the world was focused on AIDS, more than 7,000 people came to the local health clinic with malaria. The South African Defense Force was called in, and soldiers set up tents outside the clinic to treat the sick. At the district hospital 30 miles away in Mosvold, the wards filled with patients suffering with the headache, weakness and fever of malaria -- 2,303 patients that month. ''I thought we were going to get buried in malaria,'' said...

Senator and Mrs. John Kerry are big fans of Rachel Carson, whose disingenuous book Silent Spring launched the radical anti-pesticide movement that Terersa Heinz Kerry bankrolls rather handsomely through her family philanthropies. THK applauds "important gains" like the "banning of DDT and other harmful pesticides" as vital to ending the "devastating triple whammy" that women get from "the chemical soup" they encounter every day from birth control pills, makeup and sunblock, and "daily games of golf" on courses that are "perfectly manicured, thanks to estrogenic pesticides." "Drift is something we cannot afford when it comes to human rights," she insists....

Health in the Balance By Paul Driessen and Niger Innis News flash! New artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT drugs) will, and pesticides (including DDT) may, henceforth play greater roles in the global battle against malaria. Thus spoke World Health Organization and U.S. Agency for International Development officials at a September 14 hearing before the House Subcommittee on Africa. The declarations may represent significant progress, and exceptionally good news for millions in developing countries -- if the agencies really mean what they said (there are serious doubts), and Congress is willing to hold them to their commitments. Consider what's at stake: HIV/AIDS...

Day -- After Day After Day After Day -- of the Locusts By Roger Bate In my high school biology class I recall the fascination with which I used to dissect locusts. The animal rights lobby might not like allowing kids to cut up dead stuff but it really brings home basic anatomy -- head, thorax, abdomen and how simple creatures function. That said, locusts really are quite horrible looking creatures, and one time the door to their glass cage opened and about 25 flew around the laboratory. One flew straight into the hair of a girl sitting opposite me...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency will be free to approve pesticides without consulting wildlife agencies to determine if the chemical might harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to new Bush administration rules. The streamlining by the Interior and Commerce departments represents "a more efficient approach to ensure protection of threatened and endangered species," officials with the two agencies, EPA and the Agriculture Department said in a joint statement Thursday. It also is intended to head off future lawsuits, the officials said. Under the Endangered Species Act, EPA has been required to consult with...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Many U.S. residents carry unhealthy levels of pesticides in their bodies, with children, women and Mexican Americans disproportionately exposed to the toxic chemicals, according to a study released Tuesday. The Pesticide Action Network analyzed data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a study of more than 2,648 people tested for levels of 34 pesticides, the environmental group said. The PAN study - called "Chemical Trespass: Pesticides in Our Bodies and Corporate Accountability" - found that a large percentage of people who had their blood and urine tested carried pesticides above levels...

Don't believe all you read well, except maybe this Argument for DDT use has merit but needs more facts to support claim A recent letter to the editor attempts to shatter conventional wisdom on DDT and its connection to declines in bird populations years ago. The letter writer wrote "not one study has shown that the inclusion of DDT in the diet of any birds has caused eggshell thinning." This simply is not true. The statement was written in the greater context of a point that the recent shotgun killing of four brown pelicans on the National Seashore is less...