Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/center-for-biological-diversity/)
For those too busy to keep track of what's been happening to bees in general, and the American Bumblebee in particular, the little critters are being absolutely obliterated by Big Ag pesticides from companies including Bayer AG and Syngenta. And that's a big deal because bees pollinate a bunch of fruits and vegetables in your local grocery.
As early as 2015, the EPA identified that Seresto "ranked #1 by a wide margin" when it came to incident reports of pet death and harm.
The petition comes about four months after an Investigate Midwest and USA TODAY story found the popular flea and tick collar had been linked to about 1,700 pet deaths and more than 75,000 incidents of harm.
More than a decade ago, nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the EPA to ban the use of a pesticide called tetrachlorvinphos in pet products like flea and tick collars. The organization cited studies showing that the chemical, a possible carcinogen, had been linked to brain and nerve damage in children.
EPA data has linked Seresto flea and tick collars to about 1,700 pet deaths.
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.
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.
The Trump administration in recent days took steps toward continuing to allow the use of two popular pesticides linked to developmental issues in children. In both cases, the agency weakened its metrics for assessing human health protections. On Sept. 18, the EPA approved the continued use of atrazine, the second most commonly sprayed herbicide in the United States. Atrazine, whose main manufacturer is Syngenta, is banned in more than 35 countries, including the European Union, because of its links to human health, which include reproductive issues, an increased chance of birth defects, a loss of fertility in men and a potential to cause cancer.