Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/pesticides/)
Over the past decade, the percentage of fruit, vegetable and grain items found with the acceptable amount of pesticide residue has increased, according to figures from the FDA testing.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture has tracked human pesticide exposure cases reported to the agency since 2019.
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.
If actions speak to the truth, the American Farm Bureau Federation cares more about cherries than children's health. In what is a truly shake-the-head, sad moment, the AFBF last month filed a petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency saying the Fed’s final ruling banning the pesticide chlorpyrifos was bungled — and should be reversed. This, despite the fact that courts essentially settled the issue.
The maker of a popular flea and tick collar did not report thousands of adverse incidents to federal authorities as required until after an investigation by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting (Investigate Midwest) and USA TODAY was published.
In summer 2020, a federal court ruled the EPA showed too much deference to Bayer when it approved the company’s dicamba herbicide. This invalidated the approval. But, weeks later, Bayer began working the EPA again, according to newly obtained emails.
Although President Joe Biden has promised to limit people’s exposure to “dangerous chemicals and pesticides,” his administration has defended several actions by the Trump administration that generally deregulated pesticides.
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.
After looking at the facts, anyone with half a brain would say the pesticide chlorpyrifos has no place in agriculture. The Environmental Protection Agency first registered the Dow Chemical and DuPont concoction way back in 1965 to kill bugs on a host of crops from corn and soybeans to fruit and nut trees, broccoli, cauliflower, cranberries and Brussels sprouts. And for good measure it was also heavily applied on golf courses.
We now have an admission of guilt from EPA that it wrongly issued 2018 dicamba registrations for Bayer's XtendiMax herbicide, BASF's Engenia herbicide and Corteva's FeXapan herbicide. New acting assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff said as much to EPA staffers in an internal e-mail on March 10 that read in part: