Archives for 2025
- Monday, January 20, 2025
Glyphosate Product: Safe Food Matters and others in Court on Wednesday
Glyphosate Product: Safe Food Matters and others in Court on Wednesday
This fight is about the product “Mad Dog Plus”, and the fact that the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) routinely renews products, on a 5 year basis, without looking into new science on risks arising after major registration decisions.
SNAP Comment: In Canada, a pesticide is re-registered every 5 years and re-evaluated eveyr 15 years, in theory. Historically, the re-evaluation process has often been far behind. I think new research only has to be considered in re-evaluations. Even then, the issue is deeper than that: independent studies are consistently not given the same weight as inadequate industry mandated studies and considered irrelevant. Will this precedent European decision help us? PAN successfully challenges pesticide product authorisation - major implications (PAN Europe, January 20, 2025)
filed under LegalLitigation/ Canada p.2 and glyphosate 2
- Monday, January 20, 2025
PAN successfully challenges pesticide product authorisation - major implications
fungicide difenoconazole
PAN successfully challenges pesticide product authorisation - major implications (PAN Europe, January 20, 2025)
'Thereby, this assessment needs not only take into account certain types of scientific and technical knowledge or the time when such knowledge became available (para 77). The determination of whether an active substance has endocrine-disrupting properties must be made on the basis of all available, relevant and reliable scientific and technical knowledge.
...‘In its objection, PAN argued that several studies (among others) show that difenoconazole has endocrine-disrupting properties. The Ctgb did not initially assess this information in the examination of the application for authorisation, because it believed that endocrine-disrupting properties of an active substance should only be assessed at European level when approving that active substance. In the College's view, it is thus established that the contested decision was negligently prepared. The Ctgb's later position - in response to the ECJ's ruling - that the studies cited by PAN are insufficient to identify difenoconazole as endocrine disrupting, is in the opinion of the Board insufficient. If the Ctgb is of the opinion that the studies cited by PAN cannot be regarded as available, relevant and reliable scientific and technical knowledge, it should have given proper and insightful reasons for this.’
‘The conclusion is that the contested decision was insufficiently carefully prepared and unsoundly motivated.’ The Ctgb must issue a new decision within six months, in which ‘the authorisation decision (and the renewal decision) will have to be reconsidered in its entirety, taking into account all the facts and circumstances at the time of the reconsideration.’
SNAP Comment: The same issue we constantly have in Canada. Independent studies are consistently considered irrelevant. Will this prrecedent European decision help us? There are currently 31 difenoconazole containing pesticides registered in Canada.
filed under Legislation/Regulatory/Europe
- Friday, January 10, 2025
Investigative Report Finds Canada’s Reversal of Neonicotinoid Ban Influenced by Bayer/Monsanto
Investigative Report Finds Canada’s Reversal of Neonicotinoid Ban Influenced by Bayer/Monsanto(Beyond Pesticides, December 18, 2024)
A bombshell investigation conducted by Canada’s National Observer finds that Bayer, which acquired the Monsanto chemical company in 2018, colluded with environmental and public health regulators in Canada to obstruct a proposed neonicotinoid insecticide ban originally introduced in 2018.
To the dismay of Dr. Morrissey, federal officials at PMRA shared her unpublished data from 2014 with Bayer despite an understanding that the pesticide regulatory body would not share the data with industry unless “they signed an affidavit to use it as a part of the registration process.” “I... Bayer replicated her tests during the end of summer when fields were dry and neonics weren’t running into the water,” Canada’s National Observer reports. “Instead of visiting and taking water samples from the sites, they relied primarily on Google Earth and Street View to find the wetlands Morrissey sampled and evaluate if they were relevant to the PMRA’s pesticide risk assessment. Bayer’s team only visited ‘a few sites’ in person,” the report says. In reversing the proposed ban, PMRA adopted Bayer’s critique of “relevant” sites in Dr. Morrissey’s aquatic risk assessment in its final decision to allow the continued use of imidacloprid.
In a recent press release, the David Suzuki Foundation, alongside numerous medical, legal, and civil society organizations, is calling on Health Canada to engage in an independent review to correct for agency corruption and industry influence.
filed under Industry shenanigans/regulatory and legal p.2 and neonicotinoids 2
- Friday, January 10, 2025
Review Cites Memory and Learning Impairments; Children, Workers, and Nontarget Organisms at Risk
Review Cites Memory and Learning Impairments; Children, Workers, and Nontarget Organisms at Risk
(Beyond Pesticides, December 12, 2024) 'A literature review of 161 articles in Discover Toxicology finds that pesticides with different mechanisms of action cause memory and learning impairments. These effects are noted in nontarget species including humans. Pesticide “exposure during development, as well as chronic environmental and occupational exposure, can contribute to decreased cognitive performance,” the researchers say. With a focus on organophosphate pesticides, synthetic pyrethroids, and neonicotinoid insecticides, the authors highlight neurological impacts. Both learning and memory are crucial for the survival of many species.'
The article proceeds to describe the effects found for the various classes of pesticides.
filed under health/nervous system effects
- Friday, January 10, 2025
Study Links Numerous Chemical Families of Pesticides to Endocrine Disrupting Effects, Including Obesity
phenoxy herbicides like 2,4-D, organophosphates, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids
Study Links Numerous Chemical Families of Pesticides to Endocrine Disrupting Effects, Including Obesity (Beyond Pesticides, December 17, 2024)
A systematic review of studies on pesticides as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on body weight, published in Biomedicines, evaluates 36 clinical and preclinical studies and links their agricultural use to obesity. The authors ... assess studies on a range of pesticides, including organophosphates, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, and others. In addition to concluding that the EDCs promote obesity, they report that the chemicals cause “other anthropometric changes by altering lipid and glucose metabolism, modifying genes, or altering hormone levels such as leptin.”
“Participants with obesity were found to have higher urinary concentrations of 2,4-D and 2,5-D. Higher concentrations of these pesticides were associated with increased BMI and waist circumference,” the authors note. “As in children, the adult study showed a higher prevalence of obesity with higher urinary levels of 2,4-D and 2,5-D.” The additional studies find that carbendazim, thiophanate, benomyl, metalaxyl, propineb, and chlorpyrifos show a statistically significant association with obesity prevalence.
Seven in vitro studies evaluate the “effects of pesticides on the anatomy and physiology of hepatocytes and adipocytes” and the prevalence of obesity. Regarding hepatocytes, which are cells primarily in the liver that play a role in metabolism, cis-Bifenthrin is found to increase intracellular triglyceride levels in these cells after just 24 hours.
Adipocytes, fat cells found in adipose tissue, experience impacts from multiple pesticides:
filed under Diabetes/Obesity
- Friday, January 10, 2025
Early ‘forever chemicals’ exposure could impact economic success in adulthood – study
PFAs
Early ‘forever chemicals’ exposure could impact economic success in adulthood – study ( The Guardian, 10 January, 2025)
'Those (children) who lived in regions with firefighting training areas earned about 1.7% on average less later in life, and showed a graduation rate about 1% lower. Those born between 1981-1988 earned about $1bn less in today’s earnings, or about $1,000 a person on average, compared to those who did not live near the firefighting training sites.
The data also shows lower birth weights among the population – a factor linked to lower economic success later in life...
The chemicals have been used as the primary ingredient in firefighting foam because the formulas are effective at putting out jet fuel fires, or other difficult to manage fires. The Department of Defense is still trying to get a handle on the scope of its pollution around bases.
The study looked at children who were born during a period between 1969 and 1989. It found a stronger correlation in lower earnings among those born later in that period, probably because the chemicals can take several years to pollute groundwater, and the level of pollution likely grew.
The data also showed declines in birth weight starting in the late 1970s, with an average birth weight decrease of nearly eight grams by the 1980s.'
filed under Polyfluorinated pessticides and PFAs
- Friday, January 10, 2025
EPA s Registration of Herbicide under New Framework Puts Endangered Species at Elevated Risk, Advocates Say
EPA’s Registration of Herbicide under New Framework Puts Endangered Species at Elevated Risk, Advocates Say (Beyond Pesticides, December 13, 2024)
Advocates argue that EPA’s Framework has effectively substituted one problematic and insufficient process for another. Even once a mitigation requirement is identified after a new or renewed pesticide registration, compliance by a pesticide applicator, farmer, or worker operates under a “self-service, honor system,” relying on users to proactively seek information online and then simply consider mitigation steps from a still complex menu of possible choices. EPA notes: “The final strategy itself does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use. Rather, EPA will use the strategy to inform mitigations for new active ingredient registrations and registration review of conventional herbicides.” Therefore, with this Framework, EPA does not appear to establish clear and specific use and site restrictions communicated through a pesticide label, which has historically been established as a set of enforceable legal restrictions under federal pesticide law.
Critics observe that EPA does not possess the scientific expertise, nor the statutory authority, to accurately determine the potential for “population level” impacts to “listed species.” They are obligated to rely on the USFWS and NMFS through a consultation process to make such assessments of the potential effects on species that inhabit such complex ecological systems. Therefore, any pesticide that has not gone through a complete ESA (Endangered Seecies Act) consultation cannot have been properly evaluated. (The Center for Biological Diversity argued this in its June 2024 comments.)
SNAP Comment: I don't know if this is also the current Canadian approach, but our approach leaves alot to be desired as well.
filed under Legislation/Regulatory/ USA p2 and wildlife section/endangered species
- Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Widespread Prevalence of Banned Crop Chemical In US Food Supply Sparks Concerns
chlormequat
Widespread Prevalence of Banned Crop Chemical In US Food Supply Sparks Concerns
(ByJess Cockerill, Science Alert, 21 February 2024)
Many countries allow the use of chlormequat in agricultural crops, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union.
But in the US, the chemical is banned from use on any food crops, and is only approved for use in growing ornamental plants. However, since a decision by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2018, foods grown with chlormequat are allowed to be imported into the country.
Where it was detected, concentrations of the chemical were consistent between the 2017 and 2018-2022 groups, while the samples from 2023 had significantly higher concentrations. Chlormequat doesn't stay in the body long, so the authors say the high prevalence could indicate "likely continuous exposure".
SNAP Comment: As chlormequat is allowed on crops in Canada, similar testing should show similaar results.
filed under Chlormequat
- Tuesday, January 7, 2025
EWG finds little-known toxic chemical in four out of five people tested
chlorrmequat herbicide, link to Canada
EWG finds little-known toxic chemical in four out of five people tested (By Anthony Lacey (EWG) and Alexis Temkin, Ph.D. (EWG), EWG, February 15, 2024)
- First-in-the-U.S. study looked for the presence of chlormequat in humans.
- Federal rules allow the chemical’s use on oats and other grains imported to the U.S.
- Animal studies link chlormequat to reproductive and developmental problems, creating questions about its impact on humans.
Environmental Protection Agency regulations allow the chemical to be used on ornamental plants only – not food crops – grown in the U.S. But its use is permitted on imported oats and other foods sold here. Many oats and oat products consumed in the U.S. come from Canada.
Chlormequat was not allowed on oats sold in the U.S. before 2018, when the Trump EPA gave first-time approval for some amount of the chemical on imported oats. The same administration in 2020 increased the allowable level. These regulatory changes might help explain why we’re seeing more frequent, higher detections of the chemical in Americans tested.
In April 2023, in response to a 2019 application submitted by chlormequat manufacturer Taminco, the Biden EPA proposed allowing the first-ever use of chlormequat on barley, oat, triticale and wheat grown in the U.S. EWG opposes the plan.
SNAP Comment: Chlormequat is a herbicide, and 'can also be used as an adjuvant for herbicides by retarding their oxidative disposal by plants' (Wikipedia). The CAS number for chlormequat chloride is 999-81-5 and 7003-89-6 999-81-5 for chlormequat chloride salt.. As formulants (or inerts) are secret in the US and Canada, who knows what pesticide formulations it has been added toas an adjuvant. Howeve, neither CAS number or the name chlormequat appears in the current formulant list from the PMRA. As of January 2025, there are 5 registered chlormequat pesticide poducts registered in Canada: 2 commercial formulations, and 3 technicals. In the United States, chlormequat is classified as a 'low risk plant growth regulator', likely because its LD50 (rat, oral) is approximately 670 mg/kg. The LD 50 is the level at which 1/2 the test animals die. It does not account for more subtle effects.
filed under pesticide fact sheets/chlormequat
- Thursday, January 2, 2025
Replacement crop treatment not safe for important pollinator, experts say
flupyradifurone, has been licenced globally for use on bee-visited crops
Replacement crop treatment not safe for important pollinator, experts say (University of Bristol Press release, 6 September 2024)
A novel pesticide thought to be a potential successor to banned neonicotinoids caused 100% mortality in mason bees in a recent test.
The novel pesticide, flupyradifurone, is thought to pose less risk to pollinators and consequently has been licenced globally for use on bee-visited crops.
...research by scientists at the University of Bristol and the University of Texas at Austin, discovered, contrary to their expectations, that the chemical was lethal in the bees Osmia lignaria exposed to pesticide-treated wildflowers.
They also found a number of sublethal effects. Seven days post-application, bees released into the pesticide-treated plants were less likely to start nesting, had lower survival rates, and were less efficient foragers, taking 12.78% longer on average to collect pollen and nectar than control bees.
“Our findings add to a growing body of evidence demonstrating that pesticide risk assessments do not sufficiently protect wild bees from the negative consequences of pesticide use.”
Paper: A novel pesticide has lethal consequences for an important pollinator’ by Harry Siviter et al (Science of the Total Environment, Volume 952, 20 November 2024, 175935)
SNAP Comment: 7 flupyradifurone pesticides are currently registered in Canada. The first 3 are registered since 2015.
filed under Sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone and wildlife/insects p.2