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Environment

Popular flea collar linked to almost 1,700 pet deaths. The EPA has issued no warning.

By Johnathan Hettinger, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | March 2, 2021

Seresto, one of the most popular flea and tick collars in the country, has been linked to hundreds of pet deaths, tens of thousands of injured animals and hundreds of harmed humans, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents show.

Yet the EPA has done nothing to inform the public of the risks.

Our Latest

Coronavirus

DOL watchdog: OSHA’s virtual inspections during pandemic likely led to dangerous workplaces
By Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | 5 hours ago
While complaints increased, overall inspections dramatically decreased, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.
Coronavirus

Industry lobbying left nursing homes vulnerable in pandemic
By Sidney Madden, Braeden Waddell and Yanqi Xu, Investigative Reporting Workshop | 13 hours ago
Even before COVID-19, aides caring for elderly and disabled people in nursing homes often were overworked and underpaid, doing everything from changing linens to helping residents eat to physically rotating them to prevent bed sores.
Coronavirus

GRAPHIC: Meatpacking workers still complain to OSHA about COVID-19
By Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | 15 hours ago
OSHA received its first complaints about meatpacking plants almost a full year ago, on March 17, 2020. At two plants in North Carolina, people were elbow-to-elbow, with no change in operations, according to OSHA data.
Agribusiness

Information on factory farms is spotty at best. The government has been hogtied from doing more.
By Madison McVan, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | February 25, 2021
CAFOs have been a point of contention between the livestock industry and environmental activists since they began to proliferate in the 1990s, overtaking small, pasture-feeding operations as the dominant form of animal agriculture in the US. As the number of livestock producers has declined, the number of animals — hogs, cattle and poultry — has skyrocketed over the past several decades, in part due to rapid consolidation in the industry.
Graphic of the Week

GRAPHIC: Leafy greens have caused more than 40 E. coli outbreaks in the past decade. The FDA is trying to change that.
By Madison McVan, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | February 23, 2021
After a 2018 E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce hospitalized more than 100 people and killed five, the US Food and Drug Administration put together an action plan to reduce E. coli contamination in leafy greens.
Opinion

Opinion: Big Meat must provide transparency for COVID response
By Dave Dickey, Commentator | February 23, 2021
Well, times are changing, and Big-Meat won't be able to be so caviler to the shiny new House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis chaired by U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn. The South Carolina Democrat wasted no time after his appointment to demand Big-Meat to account for its COVID response.
Graphic of the Week

GRAPHIC: Fines for environmental violations dropped during Trump administration
By Ignacio Calderon, USA TODAY Network Agriculture Data Fellow | February 18, 2021
Fines have ebbed and flowed over the years, but there was a drop off in the past four years.
USDA News Release

FACT SHEET: Update on USDA Activities to Contain the COVID-19 Pandemic
By USDA News Release | February 18, 2021
The National Strategy provides a roadmap to guide America out of the worst public health crisis in a century. It is organized around seven goals.
Agribusiness

The CDC recommended states prioritize farmworkers for the COVID-19 vaccine. A few large agricultural states have not.
By Frank Hernandez, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | February 18, 2021
A few states with large agricultural populations have, so far, left farmworkers out of their COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
center for biological diversity

Opinion: Feds and the Courts need to deliver certainty on dicamba
By Dave Dickey, Commentator | February 17, 2021
So, to summarize, environmentalists hate the dicamba registrations. Farmers hate the dicamba registrations. A huge turnover at the top of EPA is underway due to last November's elections. And the clock is ticking on the start of the 2021 planting season. If that's not a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding dicamba, I don't know what is. Time is of the essence and the feds and courts need to quickly provide guidance.
Graphic of the Week

GRAPHIC: One in six U.S. residents get sick from food poisoning each year. These are among the costliest germs.
By By Pam Dempsey, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | February 10, 2021
Foodborne illnesses cost more than $15 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity and wages, according to the federal government.
Opinion

And the beat goes on (but did you expect different?)
By Dave Dickey, Commentator | February 10, 2021
Of course, they denied it. We didn't do anything wrong. There ain't any liability! Such was the tired worn-out rhetoric of Pilgrim's Pride Corporation and Tyson Foods, Inc in agreeing to settle a long-running civil suit filed by Maplevale Farms claiming the two Big-Meat giants fixed prices on broiler chickens.
Wellness on the Farm

Farmers already felt isolated. The COVID-19 pandemic made it worse.
By Marissa Plescia, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | February 10, 2021
The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated farmers’ feelings of isolation, according to a recent survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation. The percentage who said social isolation affects farmers’ mental health jumped more than 20% in 2020 compared to 2019.
Coronavirus

Ten months into pandemic, Rochelle Foods and Illinois health department still at odds over COVID-19
By Madison McVan, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, and Derek Kravitz, Brown Institute for Media Innovation | February 9, 2021
An infected worker allegedly told the plant's manager he was feeling better after his positive test. He told the county health department the opposite.
Coronavirus

OSHA and USDA waited months into pandemic to coordinate effort into COVID-19 crisis in meatpacking plants, emails show
By Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | February 5, 2021
OSHA and USDA waited until April of last year — more than three months into the pandemic and after a plant shut down because workers fell ill — to plan a response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases at meatpacking plants, according to emails obtained by Public Citizen.