Latest News...
- Thursday, February 21, 2019
The herbicide glyphosate persists in wild, edible plants: B.C. study
Wood found unexpected levels of glyphosate in new shoots and berries of plants that survived an aerial herbicide application made one year earlier.
The herbicide glyphosate persists in wild, edible plants: B.C. study (RANDY SHORE, Vancouver Sun, February 20, 2019)
'Wood found unexpected levels of glyphosate in new shoots and berries of plants that survived an aerial herbicide application made one year earlier... The 10 species tested were selected for their importance as traditional-use plants, because some First Nations had expressed concerns about the long-term effects of glyphosate on wild plants, said Wood...Glyphosate is typically broken down in soil by microorganisms over a period of months, but how long it persists in living plant tissues is unknown, she said.'
filed under Exposure to Pesticides and glyphosate
- Thursday, February 21, 2019
DDT Exposure During Early Life Associated with Increased Risk of Breast Cancer
DDT Exposure During Early Life Associated with Increased Risk of Breast Cancer (Beyond Pesticides, February 20, 2019)
Women exposed to DDT during ‘early windows of susceptibility’ in their childhood are at increased risk of developing breast cancer, according to new research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
'These studies, and the predictable lag time between exposure, health impacts, and epidemiological data on those impacts should lead lawmakers and regulators to consider taking a more precautionary approach to the introduction of these chemicals into the environment.'
filed under cancer/Links between individual pesticides and cancer or pesticides and individual cancers
- Wednesday, February 20, 2019
New study claimed to show safety of CRISPR shows the opposite
New study claimed to show safety of CRISPR shows the opposite (GM Watch: 29 January 2019)
'Such lobbyists aim to dismantle the EU's process-based GMO regulation, which acknowledges the inherent uncertainties of the GM process, and replace it with product-based regulation such as that of North America, where only the intended resulting product is assessed for risk.'
'Thus far, this is a well carried out study that breaks new ground in terms of separating the gene editing process into its different elements and working out which element caused how many of certain types of mutations.'
'Their conclusion, "Our data support a recent call to 'Regulate genome-edited products, not genome editing itself'." is 'entirely at odds with the authors' own findings. Their results show that the CRISPR process, taken as a whole, induces hundreds of procedurally induced mutations. They show that the process is inherently problematic. Thus regulation based only on what the end product is intended to be is obviously diametrically opposed to what the science – including the authors' own results – is telling us.'
filed under gmos
- Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Glyphosate use linked to phosphorus pollution in water bodies
Glyphosate use linked to phosphorus pollution in water bodies (GM Watch, 30 January 2019)
'Estimating the supply of phosphorus (P) derived from glyphosate use, both globally and in the US alone, we show that trends have markedly increased over the past two decades. Across the US, mean inputs of glyphosate‐derived P increased from 1.6 kg P km−2 in 1993 to 9.4 kg P km−2 in 2014, with values frequently exceeding 20 kg P km−2 in areas planted with glyphosate‐resistant crops...Although still a minor source of P relative to fertilizers, P inputs from glyphosate use have now reached levels comparable to those from sources for which P regulations were initiated in the past. We thus argue for greater recognition of glyphosate's influence on P flow in watershed research and management.'
filed under water
- Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Bees face yet another lethal threat in dicamba, a drift-prone pesticide
Bees face yet another lethal threat in dicamba, a drift-prone pesticide (By Liza Gross, Reveal, January 23, 2019)
'From 2016 to 2017, U.S. honey production dropped 9 percent. Official statistics for 2018 have not been released.' Bee orders for pollination in California orchards have trouble being filled.'Coy became convinced that plummeting honey production at Coy’s Honey Farm, which is Arkansas’ largest beekeeping operation, was due to dicamba after reading one of Mortensen’s studies. The research showed that doses of dicamba that mimicked the drift associated with spraying the weed killer delayed flowering and reduced by half the number of flowers that plants produced and the number of pollinator visits.' Link to study 'Effects of the herbicide dicamba on nontarget plants and pollinator visitation' in article.
filed under bee die-off
- Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Eating GM maize sprayed with Roundup increased death rate – study
'Eating GM maize sprayed with Roundup increased death rate – study (GM Watch, 16 February 2019)
'The section of the paper reporting the results of the G-TwYST study states, "The mortality rate of the male rats fed the 33% NK603 + Roundup diet was significantly higher than that of the corresponding control group" fed non-GM maize."'
'However, the authors buried this finding in the detail of the study. They failed to make any mention of it whatsoever in the abstract. The abstract only states – falsely – that "no adverse effects related to the feeding of the NK603 maize cultivated with or without Roundup for up to 2 years were observed"'.'This misrepresentation of the study findings raises the question of why scientists funded with EU taxpayers' money would apparently downplay such results, misleading the public and the scientific community.'
'The increased mortality in the males fed NK603 + Roundup was related to pituitary tumours, according to the Discussion section of the paper'although pituitary tumors occured at the same rate. Only the males in the Roundup-treated group were subject to overeating and being overweigth and the researchers did not research that.
The analysis found potential conflict of interest. 'Many experts involved in G-TwYST and its affiliated EU-funded studies also had affiliations with industry or organisations funded by industry.'
SNAP Comment: One should also question.how the study made it to a prre-reviewed journal with wrong conclusions......
filed under industry shenanigans/Inteference with Research and Research Publication
- Wednesday, February 20, 2019
French, German farmers destroy crops after GMOs found in Bayer seeds
French, German farmers destroy crops after GMOs found in Bayer seeds (Reuters, 06/02/2019) The company producingthe seeds was formerly owned by Monsant. Seeds were produced in a non-gmo area of Argentina. Bayer is compensating affected farmers for economic loss.
SNAP comment:I see two lessons in this:1. It's impossible to keep gmo seeds separate. 2. It's easier to get compensation for economic loss versus health problem
filed under gmos/general
- Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Outcry grows over fired Agriculture Ministry whistleblower, as CAQ dodges questions
Quebec story
Outcry grows over fired Agriculture Ministry whistleblower, as CAQ dodges questions
Quebec story (CBC News, Feb 14, 2019) 'Pressure is increasing on the Coalition Avenir Québec government to reinstate a whistleblower fired from his job last month after exposing private-sector meddling in pesticide research...Radio-Canada reported that industry representatives were pressuring scientists to avoid publicizing findings that demonstrated neonicotinoids — a class of insecticides — are harmful to bees and other pollinating insects.'
filed under industry shenanigans/ Inteference with Research and Research Publication
- Monday, February 18, 2019
EPA-Registered Herbicide Found to Trigger Inflammation Linked to Onset of Multiple Sclerosis
Linuron, recently banned in Europe
EPA-Registered Herbicide Found to Trigger Inflammation Linked to Onset of Multiple Sclerosis
(Beyond Pesticides, February 5, 2019) 'Researchers began their investigation with 976 chemicals identified by EPA’s ToxCast program, an inventory of compounds that have undergone screening for a battery of laboratory tests. Within that inventory, 75 chemicals, including linuron, were found to interfere with the signaling pathways linked to MS...“When we study inflammation and neurodegeneration, we learn that the environment may play just as important of a role as genetics,” Dr. Quintana noted.'
SNAP Comment: This is the first time I come across the term exposome which can be defined as the measure of all the exposures of an individual in a lifetime and how those exposures relate to health. There are currently 7 Linuron products registered in Canada where they can be used on saskatoon, chokecherry, potatoe, grain crops and more.
filed under health/immune/auto-immune diseases
- Monday, February 18, 2019
Study Predicts Demise of Insects within Decades if Pesticide Dependence Continues
Study Predicts Demise of Insects within Decades if Pesticide Dependence Continues
(Beyond Pesticides, February 11, 2019) 'A new systematic review of insect population studies worldwide reports on “the dreadful state of insect biodiversity in the world, as almost half of the species are rapidly declining and a third are being threatened with extinction.” The study concludes with the dire prediction that insects as a whole will go extinct in the next few decades if patterns of intensive agriculture, in particular pesticide use, continue...One in every three insect species monitored worldwide is threatened with extinction. Even more concerning is the finding that 41% of insect species worldwide are in decline, outpacing the more well-publicized vertebrate declines by 200%...More than half of the studies that Drs. Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys review point directly to intensive agriculture and increased reliance on agrochemicals as causal factors driving insect declines. Several more consider pesticides to be the most likely agent responsible for insect declines, masked under the category of “unexplained factors”... “Several multivariate and correlative statistical analyses confirm that the impact of pesticides on biodiversity is larger than that of other intensive agricultural practices…”
filed under pesticides and wildlife/insects