TITLE: Under pressure from weed consumers, California regulators hustle to start testing for pesticides
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-23/faced-with-a-pesticide-scandal-cannabis-regulators-dodge-mandates
EXCERPT: The disclosure that some top California brands are contaminated hit the state’s legal weed industry like “a bomb,” as one cannabis influencer described the news on social media, while another on TikTok drew more than 4 million views just by reading a partial list of the chemicals documented in The Times’ investigation.
The public reaction escalated pressure on state officials for more aggressive oversight. However, a bill that would attack what its sponsor called “widespread fraud in cannabis testing” had previously been largely gutted of language that would have mandated random safety checks of products taken from store shelves, including tests for levels of toxic chemicals.
A robust shelf-testing program is viewed by its supporters as a crucial backstop to a system that currently relies on private cannabis labs paid by producers to pass or fail their products.
As first introduced in 2023, the bill also would have required the state to test the ability of labs to detect contaminants.
According to the bill sponsor and industry lobbyists involved in negotiations, both safeguards were removed at the behest of the Department of Cannabis Control, the agency created to protect consumers and ensure California’s legal weed crop is safe and tested — and now under fire for failing to address evidence of contamination in the state’s $5-billion legal weed market. The agency did not respond to questions about the bill, saying it “does not comment on pending legislation.”
The contaminants include chemicals tied to cancer, liver failure, thyroid disease and genetic and neurologic harm to users and unborn children. Most are in concentrations that risk long-term harm by repeated use. But tests show some brands of vapes exceeded state and federal thresholds for harm from a single exposure. The companies behind the brands have denied violating state regulations.
State cannabis officials contend that the agency already has a program in place to test products on dispensary shelves. And the agency said requiring labs to prove their testing abilities would be expensive, though it did not specify how much it would cost. A proficiency testing company told The Times such tests can cost from $500 to $2,000 each, depending on their complexity.
A spokesman for the bill’s sponsor, Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) defended scrapping its toughest parts, acknowledging cost concerns raised by the agency were a factor.
“Given the budget constraints this year, the Member has taken this into consideration,” said the spokesman, Richard Garcia.
Jones-Sawyer in late 2023 amended his bill to make product testing optional. Last month, he removed proficiency checks, and cut by half the frequency of proposed lab audits, requiring them once every two years.
Some industry executives say lax oversight, combined with the financial bond between testing labs and their clients, has encouraged shoddy or fraudulent testing and results in contaminated goods being sent to stores.
“We continue to have example after example of the abysmal regulation,” said Jonatan Cvetko, executive director of the United Cannabis Business Assn. “Increasingly, our government continues to give us and the consumers less and less reason to be in the legal market. They must be held accountable for it.”
The problems have long been an open secret, said David Winternheimer, director of the now-shuttered Pacific Star Labs, who said he discussed solutions similar to those in the proposed legislation with top state regulators in 2022. Winternheimer said he was told “you have good ideas to fix this,” but nothing happened. He said Pacific Star Labs, beset by clients blatantly asking for rigged tests and other labs willing to take that business, was unable to compete.
After the Times story, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it would not intervene in the department’s handling of contaminated weed, issuing a statement in support of its ability to address the problem.
“The Governor’s Office supports DCC in developing innovative policies and effective implementation that advances and facilitates a well-regulated, legal, and safe market that benefits all Californians,” wrote Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s deputy director of communications. “DCC is best positioned to comment on these efforts.”
The Department of Cannabis Control declined to say how frequently it pulls products from store shelves, including whether it tests them for pesticides.
TITLE: PFAS widely added to US pesticides despite EPA denial, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/23/pfas-pesticides-epa-research
EXCERPT: PFAS are a class of about 15,000 compounds typically used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and accumulate, and are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems.
PFAS are added to a range of pesticides, including those used on crops, to kill mosquitoes, or to kill fleas on pets. The compounds are likely used as surfactants and to help the chemicals disperse or be absorbed.
The true level of PFAS in pesticides is likely much higher, Bennett said. The estimate works off the EPA’s unusually narrow definition of what constitutes a PFAS, and omits organofluorines.
Most regulatory agencies in the US and around the world consider organofluorines to be PFAS. When organofluorine is added to the tally, at least 60% of active ingredients approved for use in common pesticides over the last 10 years are PFAS, and about 40% overall.
Moreover, companies are not required to disclose when PFAS are used as an inert ingredient, so the paper likely missed some. The chemicals have also been found to leach at high levels from plastic containers in which many pesticides are stored, and that is not accounted for by the EPA.
Among chemicals in pesticides are PFOA and PFOS, two of the most dangerous PFAS compounds. The EPA has found virtually no level of exposure to the two chemicals in drinking water is safe. PFOA is likely leaching from the pesticides’ containers, Bennett said, but PFOS appears to be added for unknown reasons.
About two years ago, an EPA research fellow identified PFOS in pesticides and raised the alarm. The EPA responded last year by taking the highly unusual step of publicly criticizing the research, and put out a paper attempting to discredit the findings. The EPA wrote it “did not find any PFAS in the tested pesticide products”, including PFOS.
The paper’s methodology was called into question, but the new research that shows the EPA has approved PFAS to be added to pesticides “contradicts the EPA’s statements”, Bennett said. Moreover, in a Freedom of Information Act request that was part of the new study, researchers found documents showing the EPA had in fact found PFOS in pesticides but omitted those findings from the final study.
“They were trying to quell fears and said: ‘No, there’s no PFAS in pesticides,’ but, yes, there are PFAS in pesticides,” Bennett said. “They found large quantities of numerous PFAS, so that’s a problem.”
The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment
TITLE: Cancer Risk From Pesticides Comparable To Smoking For Some Cancers
https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2024/07/25/cancer-risk-from-pesticides-comparable-to-smoking-for-some-cancers/
EXCERPT: Modern agriculture currently feeds the burgeoning human population mainly because of the widespread use of pesticides. Although these chemicals appear to be miracles for agriculture and food security, pesticide exposure harms the health of plants, animals and humans, according to an alarming, but not especially surprising, new study (ref). This study compared the increased risk of cancers due to pesticide exposure to smoking, a noxious habit that is associated with a much better understood cancer risk.
“In our study we found that for some cancers, the effect of agricultural pesticide usage is comparable in magnitude to the effect of smoking,” said the study’s senior author, Isain Zapata, an Assistant Professor of Research and Statistics at Rocky Vista University, a private for-profit medical school in Colorado.
Unfortunately, farmers and farm workers are not the only groups faced with this increased risk of cancers. People who live downwind or nearby are also at risk.
“We accept that a person who is not a farmer living in a community with heavy agricultural production is exposed to many of the pesticides used in their vicinity,” Professor Zapata remarked. “It becomes part of their environment.”
Professor Zapata and collaborators found that simply living near farms was enough to increase a person’s risk of cancers and in some cases, that increased cancer risk surpassed cancers caused by smoking. The strongest cancer risks were for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukaemia, and bladder cancer (Figure 2). Most disturbing was the finding that cancer risks due to pesticide exposures were actually higher for these particular forms of cancer than due to the risks from smoking.