TITLE: They Believe Pesticides Caused Their Cancers. Proving It Is Almost Impossible.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/cancer-risk-pesticide-california-farmworkers-864174b2
EXCERPT: Farmworkers and families in Greenfield believe cancer cases in their community were caused by pesticide used in nearby fields. Establishing whether pesticide or another environmental exposure caused cancer in a particular person is difficult. Many factors influence whether someone develops cancer, and the interplay among those forces isn’t fully understood.
Some research shows pesticides can harm workers and people who live near fields where the chemicals are applied. Exposure to some pesticides has been linked to respiratory problems, neurological disorders and some cancers, said Cynthia Curl, director of the Agricultural Health Lab at Boise State University, who has published studies on the topic.
“The tricky part is saying any one person’s cancer was due to pesticide exposure,” she said.
Greenfield, a town of 19,000, sits in the Salinas Valley, where the cultivation of vegetables, wine grapes and strawberries drives the economy. The town’s middle and high schools and many homes are across the street from fields where growers apply some of the nine million pounds of pesticides used in the surrounding Monterey County each year.
Some research has connected specific agricultural pesticides to increased risks of cancers including prostate, brain and blood cancers. Farmers and workers who apply pesticides to fields are diagnosed with those cancers at higher-than-average rates, some studies suggest. Other studies have presented mixed results. The duration and nature of an exposure affect the risk pesticides pose, researchers said.
Jaramillo, who migrated from Mexico to the U.S. in 1971, learned about pesticide risks from the work of labor leader César Chávez. Jaramillo and his wife joined protests Chávez led against the insecticide DDT. The Environmental Protection Agency, which banned DDT in 1972, lists it as a probable carcinogen. Jaramillo applied pesticide in fields around Greenfield until 2008, when he switched to fixing tractors. After a two-month bout of fatigue and aches in 2019, Jaramillo visited his doctor and was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.
Many Greenfield residents associate local cancer cases with pesticide exposure, including City Council Member Yanely Martinez. She believes pesticide exposure caused breast cancer in her aunt, who was an agricultural worker.
“It’s just not something that shocks us anymore, and it shouldn’t be like that,” Martinez said.
Martinez and other advocates want farmers to use less pesticides including one called Telone, manufactured by Dow, which is injected into the soil. The EPA has said some evidence suggests Telone could be carcinogenic, and California lists it as a carcinogen and restricts its use. It is among the most widely used pesticides in Monterey County (where Greenfield is located) and across California.
Dow didn’t respond to requests for comment.
TITLE: The cost of glyphosate is mounting - for health and habitats
https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/roundup-pesticide-6225770-Nov2023/
EXCERPT: The European Chemicals Agency has classified glyphosate as toxic to aquatic life. Given the known presence of glyphosate in Irish rivers, this should start ringing alarm bells. Other studies have shown glyphosate seriously damages the ability of pollinators like bees to maintain a colony – pollinators which four out of five European crops and flowering plants depend on to survive.
In human health, it has been linked to liver cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. While the jury remains out on the carcinogenic link to glyphosate despite the WHO defining it as ‘probably’ carcinogenic in 2015. Millions have already been paid out in settlements taken by farmers in the US, France and Australia who have been hospitalised from the effects of the weedkiller, including a campaign of 5,000 affected farmers in the US.
Despite this, the European Food Safety Authority released a risk assessment earlier this year on glyphosate, which concluded “no critical areas of concern” around the active ingredient. This had us scratching our heads, especially as the same report found a “high long-term risk to mammals” in 12 of 23 proposed uses of the chemical.
Moreover, the report found massive gaps in the data. Most worryingly perhaps was the lack of information about how glyphosate reacts with co-formulants and adjuvants – chemicals commonly mixed with glyphosate and designed to amplify its effects.
The chemical itself was branded and marketed by the agrochemical giant Monsanto and was designed essentially to kill everything that wasn’t a Monsanto plant. So it is no surprise then that the same company (since bought out by rival giant Bayer) has put a lot of money into lobbying to keep glyphosate on the market. In 2021 and 2022, companies with a stake in glyphosate spent over €600,000 in lobbying European officials and MEPs via the Irish PR firm Hume Brophy (now known as Penta), according to the EU Transparency Register. Elsewhere, the US government and agrochemical lobbies have pressured countries like Thailand and Mexico to drop proposed bans on glyphosate, threatening trade wars in retaliation.
The EU appeals committee’s failure to come down hard on glyphosate this week will likely lead to the product staying on our shelves for another decade. It is a bitter pill to swallow for campaigners, farmers, market gardeners and communities who have fought hard over the decades to take on the lobbies and the special interests.
TITLE: EPA considers approving fruit pesticide despite risks to children, records show
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/21/epa-fruit-pesticide-risk-children-aldicarb
EXCERPT: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering approving a pesticide for use on Florida oranges and grapefruits despite the fact that agency scientists have repeatedly found the chemical does not meet safety standards designed to protect children’s health, internal agency records show.
EPA emails indicate how for years, agency scientists have wanted to deny new uses of aldicarb, but appear to have not done so because of persistent pressure from chemical industry lobbyists, politicians and political appointees.
The records indicate how, during the Trump administration, the agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs approved the pesticide, moving from a position favoring public health to one that critics say prioritized the interests of a North Carolina-based company called AgLogic that is seeking to expand sales of the insecticide. The EPA’s approval was later rejected by the state of Florida and a federal appeals court.
Aldicarb is still, however, being considered for approval by the Biden-era EPA. The EPA communications were obtained by the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit.
In one 2020 email, for example, an EPA regulatory specialist wrote to AgLogic that while the EPA was not yet able to make a safety finding, the agency has “spent time brainstorming possible solutions”. The emails also show that scientists within the agency appear to have felt they had to defend their concerns about aldicarb as top agency administrators and lawmakers made expanded approval of the chemical a priority.
“What this shows is just how difficult it is for the agency to say no,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “They were going to reject it so many times, and [AgLogic] just said, ‘No, no no.’”
The revelations underscore whistleblower complaints made by EPA scientists in 2021 alleging that they have been routinely pressured for years to minimise or remove scientific evidence of the dangers certain chemicals posed to public health.
Aldicarb is considered “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been banned in more than 100 countries. It also is banned by the Rotterdam convention, a global agreement to regulate the world’s most hazardous chemicals.
In the US, the EPA found in 2010 that aldicarb posed unacceptable risks to the developing brains of infants and young children, leading German conglomerate Bayer AG to cancel its registration for sales of aldicarb. At that time, the highest risk for infants and children was found to be when aldicarb was used in citrus. Since then, the EPA has allowed AgLogic a limited approval to sell aldicarb for use on cotton, dry beans, peanuts, soybeans, sugar beets and sweet potatoes. Those uses have been rare, according to US Geological Survey data.
In recent years AgLogic has been pushing for expanded approval to allow the insecticide to be used by farmers on Florida grapefruits and oranges. The EPA did grant the approval in 2021 in the waning days of the Trump administration, but that approval was overturned by a federal court in response to litigation brought by opponents and was additionally rejected by Florida regulators, finding that the continued use of the pesticide posed “an unacceptable risk to human, animal and environmental health in Florida”.
After a renewed effort by AgLogic, EPA approval is now under consideration again.