We recently interviewed ag and food journalist Carey Gillam for our podcast, Take Out. She’s been a journalist for twenty years, most recently with Reuters, as a senior correspondent that covered the agrochemical industry.
As we were wrapping the interview, she said, “We need a food agency that can conduct the independent science to know whether our food is safe.”
Nothing could be more urgent.
In a new study called “Contaminants of Emerging Concern” published in the journal Environmental Pollution, researchers studied salmon in the Puget Sound, from locations that had wastewater treatment plants located nearby.
What they found is jaw dropping. Not only was the water contaminated, but they also found an incredible number of contaminants in the fish.
According to Take Part, Puget Sound has 106 wastewater treatment plants that discharge into local waters. It’s estimated they spew about 267 pounds of drugs and chemicals into the sound every day, or nearly 100,000 pounds a year. Even more contaminants enter the water from leaking septic systems, industrial facilities, and agricultural runoff.
Of the hundreds of chemicals likely present in the Puget Sound ecosystem, only a small percentage are monitored or regulated, the study authors found, and there is little or no environmental toxicity information for the vast majority of these compounds.
So why is this happening? Because discharges of most of these chemicals are neither monitored nor prohibited, and different wastewater treatment plants use different techniques to filter their effluent. Some do a better job than others.
So what kinds of drugs were in the salmon?
Drug concentrations included amphetamines; Benadryl; antibiotics; the antidepressants Prozac, Zoloft, and norfluoxetine; a calcium channel blocker called diltiazem; hormones such as estrone and testosterone; the cholesterol medication Lopid; and the antifungal miconazole.
We can do so much better than this. We have to. The health of our country is on the line.
You can read more here and a link to the study can be found here.
There is more bad news for Monsanto this week, after the company guided their earnings numbers down. While the initial spin was that the earnings revision had to do with currency, a declining appetite for their products is also at play.
And while the EU and the USA try to figure out this game of “he said/she said” science when it comes to the safety of Monsanto’s products, France did not hesitate to move, as reported here:
Following a meeting with EU Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis on Friday, French Minister of Ecology, Ségolène Royal, announced that France will vote against the EU re-licensing of glyphosate, the world’s most used herbicide.
Royal also added that France was not backing the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on their recent safety assessment of glyphosate and was instead basing their decision on the report of the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015, which declared glyphosate to be a probable human carcinogen.
This move by France will hit the biotech giant Monsanto and other large pesticide companies which rely on glyphosate-based herbicides for a large percentage of their global profits.
Andriukaitis meanwhile confirmed that member states would discuss the regulation of glyphosate in the days to come and also added, in a very important shift in EU policy; “I commit to working with the member states to draw up a list of co-formulants in pesticides that could pose a health risk.” This is another statement that will shake the Biotech industry to the core, as previously all regulators worldwide have completely ignored the possible health risks of co-formulants, otherwise known as adjuvants or non-active ingredients in pesticides.
There is growing opposition to the re-licensing from top scientists, NGOs and MEPs. On Friday a group of 94 top scientists published an article explaining the differences in the evaluation of the weedkiller glyphosate’s cancer-causing potential by EFSA and WHO. They found that EFSA, which supported the re-licensing of glyphosate had a number of deficiencies in their report.
All this comes just days after six environmental NGOs (Global 2000, PAN Europe, PAN UK, Generations Futures, Nature et Progrès Belgique and Wemove.EU) from five European countries filed a formal legal complaint against those responsible for the assessment of glyphosate in Europe, for denying the probable carcinogenic effects of the chemical.
France isn’t the only country moving to get rid of glyphosate. Scotland, the country that Monsanto’s CEO Hugh Grant comes from, is also moving to reduce citizens’ exposure to the chemical.
On news that the company had to revise earnings, Monsanto’s shares were down 8% at close on Tuesday. More interestingly, perhaps, is that the volume of shares traded was almost 3 times the 3 month average. On Tuesday, over 10 million shares traded hands.
Keep an eye on the policy and on the financial engineering of the science and numbers. There is a lot on the line.
Dr. Lipman writes, “Good supplies of magnesium can be found in lots of good-for-you foods, like wild-caught Pacific halibut, leafy greens, powdered green drinks, spinach, black beans, pumpkin and squash seeds. The challenge is that most of us don’t get enough of it—and with magnesium responsible for so many bodily functions, it’s easy to see why getting more of it is so important.
What else contains magnesium? Avocados, bananas, raisins and dark chocolate. Sign me up! We love those foods!
You can’t marginalize this mighty mineral. Dr. Mark Hyman writes, “a deficiency in this critical nutrient makes you twice as likely to die as other people, according to a study published in The Journal of Intensive Care Medicine.”
Magnesium is an antidote to stress, the most powerful relaxation mineral available, and it can help improve your sleep.
Dr. Hyman continues, “I find it very funny that more doctors aren’t clued in to the benefits of magnesium…I remember using magnesium when I worked in the emergency room. It was a critical “medication” on the crash cart. If someone was dying of a life-threatening arrhythmia (or irregular heart beat), we used intravenous magnesium. If someone was constipated or needed to prepare for colonoscopy, we gave them milk of magnesia or a green bottle of liquid magnesium citrate, which emptied their bowels.”
Dr. Hyman then goes on to share that “it is an antidote to stress, the most powerful relaxation mineral available, and it can help improve your sleep.”
I never thought about it this way. But let’s do a quick summary: More sleep, less stress! Why isn’t everyone talking about this?
That’s all I needed. The sleep thing. With four kids, a wonderful though sometimes loud husband and a mind that often can’t stop, I knew I had to try it, if only for sleep alone.
I don’t know how many years it’s been now. All of us are now on it. The kids ask for it.
And their favorite magnesium product, hands down, is Natural Calm. It was one of those things that when I first put it on the counter, they tried it, no asking. It doesn’t happen often, and since we had already received the nudge from the pediatrician, I was totally pumped.
They loved it.
Maybe it’s the monkey see, monkey do thing, I don’t know. But we got going on this, followed our doc’s advice, and it’s become part of our routine.
Stress is always going to be part of our daily lives. With the nonstop presence of social media, work, errands, kids’ activities, appointments and so much more, we need every resource we can find to help manage it.
Life is what you make of it, always has been, always will be and this one mighty mineral can play a role in that
So talk to your doc, your dietitian, and your pediatrician about magnesium. I’m so glad that ours insisted that we did.
Today, the Senate Ag Committee voted to take away Americans right to know if their foods contain genetically engineered ingredients. They also voted to take away the rights of states that were trying to step in and label GMOs.
Do members of the Senate not know that companies like Hostess already label GMOs in other countries? Do they not know that all of our American food companies label GMOs overseas, despite saying that they can’t label GMOs because it’s too expensive?
Hostess labels its Ding Dongs overseas, Doritos are labeled, Coca Cola labels its sodas, as seen in this image from a London grocery store, sent by a flight attendant who works for Delta.
American food companies already label GMOs overseas. Food prices didn’t skyrocket. Families weren’t priced out of Twinkies, farmers didn’t go over because of the labeled Ding Dong, they simply added a few words “Derived from a genetically modified source.”
Why? Because it is simple. American food companies added these labels for 60% of the world’s population.
Here is a list of countries that label GMOs:
Australia
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Cameroon
China
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
El Salvador
Estonia
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Mali
Malta
Mauritius
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Vietnam
The double standard has to stop. Please share this, so that all Americans (and our Senators) can know this information, too.
Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup® herbicide, is recognized as the world’s most widely used weed killer. What is not so well known is that farmers also use glyphosate on crops such as wheat, oats, edible beans, and other crops right before harvest, raising concerns that the herbicide could get into food products.
Escalating use of probable carcinogen
Glyphosate has come under increased scrutiny in the past year. Last year the World Health Organization’s cancer group, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified it as a probably carcinogen. The state of California has also moved to classify the herbicide as a probable carcinogen. A growing body of research is documenting health concerns of glyphosate as an endocrine disruptor, and that it kills beneficial gut bacteria, damages the DNA in human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells, and is linked to birth defects and reproductive problems in laboratory animals.
A recently published paper describes the escalating use of glyphosate: 18.9 billion pounds have been used globally since its introduction in 1974, making it the most widely and heavily applied weed-killer in the history of chemical agriculture. Significantly, 74% of all glyphosate sprayed on crops since the mid-1970s was applied in just the last 10 years, as cultivation of GM corn and soybeans expanded in the U.S. and globally.
Glyphosate used to speed up wheat harvest
Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., who published the paper on the mounting use of glyphosate, says the practice of spraying glyphosate on wheat prior to harvest, known as desiccating, began in Scotland in the 1980s. “Farmers there often had trouble getting wheat and barley to dry evenly so they can start harvesting. So they came up with the idea to kill the crop (with glyphosate) one to two weeks before harvest to accelerate the drying down of the grain,” he says.
The pre-harvest use of glyphosate allows farmers to harvest crops as much as two weeks earlier than they normally would, an advantage in northern, colder regions.
The practice spread to wheat-growing areas of North America such as the upper Midwestern United States and Canadian provinces such as Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
“Desiccation is done primarily in years where conditions are wet, and the crop is slow to dry down,” says Joel Ransom, an agronomist at North Dakota State University.
A dear friend and the mother of a whip-smart 5th grade student shared the following. Her daughter wrote this appeal to her school board to improve lunches and snacks at her school.
We were blown away by this little one.
February 18, 2016
Dear Fulton County School System,
I am a fifth grade student at Heards Ferry elementary school. I was assigned a project at the beginning of the year in my TAG class. The project was to find something you are passionate about, research, and create a presentation. Big or small. In this case, the thing I was passionate about was childhood obesity. I did some research, finding disturbing yet true things about child and adult obesity. Did you know that an average hour long TV show has about 11 food related commercials that encourage people to eat? An average American watches about 4 hours of TV a day. That’s 44 food related commercials!! I also found charts about childhood obesity:
These are from this year and are childhood obesity rates. The next chart is from 1974 to 2012
But these statistics are beside the point. The reason I am writing to you is for one reason. While I was researching I found out that a culprit of childhood obesity is school lunches.
Readers digest states, “A recent study found that children who regularly ate school lunches were 29 percent more likely to be obese than their peers who brought lunch from home. In a typical week, elementary school menus include chicken tenders, cheeseburgers, and ‘Pizza Fridays,’ with sides of cheesy rotini, mozzarella sticks or French fries. A healthy meal can be hard for students to come by in a public school cafeteria, and is especially challenging for school systems to provide.”
While many school districts are working to revamp their lunchroom meals, the fact is that most school lunches are not prepared from scratch and don’t use fresh fruits and vegetables; rather they are prepared with a “heat and serve” mentality. Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes state in their 2006 book, Lunch Lessons, “French fries account for 46 percent of vegetable servings eaten by children ages 2 to 19” across the nation.”
Most schools can’t provide a healthy lunch for 500 students, and I understand that. But I have come up with a few ideas to improve the cafeteria menu.
At my school, the whole school has a garden in which different classes take turns watering. Maybe if every school in Fulton County had a school garden, the cafeteria could use the veggies grown to make nutritious meals. The whole school could get involved! The veggies would be fresh and “school grown”. That would be a huge improvement for the school!
Another idea I have is replacing the usual ingredients for the healthier choice that tastes the same, or maybe even better! For example, replace white rice with quinoa, vegetable oil with coconut oil, and sour cream with Greek yogurt. The kids wouldn’t know the difference! They would be getting a delicous meal that is also very healthy!
Along with the school lunch my school provides, they also give additional snacks for the kids to eat later or at lunch. These snacks include Pop Tarts, Welshs gummies, and cookies. I agree that kids should be provided with an extra snack, but that they shouldn’t be provided with junk food. Some kids buy these snacks every day. I think that we should replace this unhealthy food with things such as granola bars, trail mix, or better yet – fresh fruits and vegetables. It would fill them up much better then junk food would.
One of my other ideas is to have fresh fruit and vegtable drives every month. Not all schools have enough money to buy fruits and veggies, so every month kids can bring in grocery store or even home grown fruits and vegtables to school. The food can be used in cafeteria lunches. It would cost less money for the school and better meals for the kids. To get the word out, we could go around the school delivering samples of fresh fruit and veggies to show everyone how good freshness can taste!
Finally, I think that even the healtheir choices at school are unhealthy. At school they serve yogurt for breakfast. You might think that’s a great choice! But its not. The yogurt they serve is Trix yogurt from the Yoplait brand. But it has twice as much sugar! The school should serve regular yoplait or greek yogurt! They also serve Tostitos chips, which I admit, is a healthier kind of chip. But, did you know that popcorn is a MUCH better choice than chips?
While most people think that foods are healthy because they say they don’t contain junk food, they’re wrong. People don’t know that there are many artifical dyes which contain chemicals derived from petroleum, an oil product, that is used in gasoline, asphalt, and tar. There are dyes and chemicals in almost everything that comes from a package. That’s why we need to use fresher items in the cafeteria. That way we know what is going into the students stomachs.
In conclusion, I think that changing Fulton County Schools cafeteria menu would be the healthier option. The healthy eating habits kids learn at school could potentionally start being used at home. Kids don’t realize what they are putting in their body. They just eat what tastes good. That’s why we can SHOW them what tastes good by changing the cafeteria menu.
Analysing data from around the world, the team led by Newcastle University, reviewed 196 papers on milk and 67 papers on meat and found clear differences between organic and conventional milk and meat, especially in terms of fatty acid composition, and the concentrations of certain essential minerals and antioxidants.
Publishing their findings today in the British Journal of Nutrition, the team say the data show a switch to organic meat and milk would go some way towards increasing our intake of nutritionally important fatty acids.
Chris Seal, Professor of Food and Human Nutrition at Newcastle University explains: “Omega-3s are linked to reductions in cardiovascular disease, improved neurological development and function, and better immune function.
“Western European diets are recognised as being too low in these fatty acids and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommends we should double our intake.
“But getting enough in our diet is difficult. Our study suggests that switching to organic would go some way towards improving intakes of these important nutrients.”
Western European diets are too low in omega-3 fatty acids
The systematic literature reviews analysed data from around the world and found that organic milk and meat have more desirable fat profiles than conventional milk and meat.
Most importantly, a switch from conventional to organic would raise omega-3 fat intake without increasing calories and undesirable saturated fat. For example, half a litre of organic full fat milk (or equivalent fat intakes from other dairy products like butter and cheese) provides an estimated 16% (39 mg) of the recommended, daily intake of very long-chain omega-3, while conventional milk provides 11% (25 mg).
Other positive changes in fat profiles included lower levels of myristic and palmitic acid in organic meat and a lower omega-6/omega-3 ratio in organic milk. Higher levels of fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin E and carotenoids and 40% more CLA in organic milk were also observed.
The study showed that the more desirable fat profiles in organic milk were closely linked to outdoor grazing and low concentrate feeding in dairy diets, as prescribed by organic farming standards.
The two new systematic literature reviews also describe recently published results from several mother and child cohort studies linking organic milk, dairy product and vegetable consumption to a reduced risk of certain diseases. This included reduced risks of eczema in babies.
Newcastle University’s Professor Carlo Leifert, who led the studies, said: “People choose organic milk and meat for three main reasons: improved animal welfare, the positive impacts of organic farming on the environment, and the perceived health benefits. But much less is known about impacts on nutritional quality, hence the need for this study.
“Several of these differences stem from organic livestock production and are brought about by differences in production intensity, with outdoor-reared, grass-fed animals producing milk and meat that is consistently higher in desirable fatty acids such as the omega-3s, and lower in fatty acids that can promote heart disease and other chronic diseases.”
Avoiding iodine over- and under-supply from milk is a challenge
The study also found 74% more iodine in conventional milk which is important information, especially for UK consumers, where iodized table salt is not widely available.
Iodine is low in most foods, except seafood, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends Iodine fortification of table salt to address this. Iodine fortification of cattle feeds is also widely used to increase iodine concentrations in both organic and conventional milk.
Gillian Butler, co-author and senior lecturer in animal nutrition at Newcastle University, explains: “There is a relatively narrow margin between dietary Iodine deficiency (<140 µg/day) and excessive intakes (> 500 µg/day) from our diet which can lead to thyrotoxicoxis.
“Optimising iodine intake is therefore challenging, since globally there seems to be as much concern about excessive rather than inadequate intake.”
In the USA, China, Brazil and many European countries, where Iodine fortified salt is widely used, elevated levels of iodine in milk may increase the risk of excessive intake for individuals with high dairy consumption. For this reason the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has proposed a reduction in the permitted level of iodine in cattle feed from 5 to 2 mg iodine per kg of feed.
However, in the UK, where iodized salt is not widely available, the population relies more on milk and dairy products for adequate iodine supply. National Diet and Nutrition Survey data (NDNS) suggest that milk and dairy products supply between 31-52% of iodine in the UK diet.
The daily recommended intake of iodine in the UK is 140 µg/day and just over half comes from dietary sources other than milk/dairy products. Based on results from the study, half a litre of milk would provide 53% of and 88% of the daily recommended intake from organic and conventional milk respectively. However, pregnant and breastfeeding women have a higher iodine requirement (250 µg/day) and are therefore more at risk of iodine deficiency, which could affect neurological development in babies.
Further evidence of the health benefits of organic food
This previous study – also published in the British Journal of Nutrition – showed that organic crops and crop-based foods are up to 60% higher in a number of key antioxidants than conventionally-grown crops and contained less of the toxic metal cadmium.
“We have shown without doubt there are composition differences between organic and conventional food. Taken together, the three studies on crops, meat and milk suggest that a switch to organic fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products would provide significantly higher amounts of dietary antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids,” concludes Professor Leifert.
“We need substantially more, well designed studies and surveys before we can accurately estimate composition differences in meat from different farm animals and for many nutritionally important compounds (vitamins, minerals, toxic metal and pesticide residues), as there is currently too little data to make comparisons.
“However, the fact that there are now several mother and child cohort studies linking organic food consumption to positive health impacts shows why it is important to further investigate the impact of the way we produce our food on human health.
The authors highlight that only a small number of studies have been carried out comparing organic and non-organic meat, and that even significant results may still carry a high level of uncertainty.
The authors of this study welcome the continued public and scientific debate on this important subject. The entire database generated and used for this analysis is freely available on the Newcastle University website, alongside the data from their previous study on organic versus conventional crops (http://research.ncl.ac.uk/nefg/QOF) for the benefit of other experts and interested members of the public.
It’s time to rethink food and refinance our food system so that organic food is affordable and accessible to all who want it.
According to a new paper in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, Americans have sprayed more than 2.4 billion pounds of glyphosate in the past decade.
Last year, cancer experts convened by the World Health Organization determined that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen.
So what did the EPA do? Between 1999 and 2015, the EPA approved a doubling of tolerable glyphosate residues on soybean grain and a 49-fold increase on corn grain.
Since 1993 the EPA has also approved a 2,000-fold increase in the tolerance level of glyphosate residues on alfalfa grown for animal feed.
The agency has also increased the allowable level of glyphosate for wheat—up 5-fold between 2012 and 2015—running the risk of glyphosate ending up in flour.
Globally, glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since so-called “Roundup Ready,” genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996. Two-thirds of the total volume of glyphosate applied in the U.S. from 1974 to 2014 has been sprayed in just the last 10 years.
Concern is growing around the world. The President of the Portuguese Medical Association, José Manuel Silva, has called for a global ban on the world’s most used herbicide, glyphosate, over the many health concerns surrounding the chemical.
So how does this impact Americans versus other countries, specifically Europeans? It looks like the image above.
Thankfully, the FDA just announced that they will start testing for glyphosate levels in food.
The South American country is all over the news right now, with stories of health official suspending the use of a mosquito larvicide that Argentine doctors think may be responsible for the surge in microcephaly cases in newborns.
Brazil first made head lines last fall when the Zika virus began to spread there. The country made headlines again when genetically modified mosquitos were released to try to control it.
And now, they are making headlines again, as doctors suggest that microcephaly, the conditions impacting newborns, is instead linked to a pesticide/larvicide that was put into the water.
You have to wonder why it feels like the wild west when it comes to unleashing these products.
A quick look at some numbers tells a story:
According to Forbes, Brazil’s economy hasn’t been this bad since the 1930s.
“The country is facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression in the United States.”
“The economic, political and fiscal outlooks in Brazil have “deteriorated significantly” in the past few months, according to BarclaysCapital analysts led by economist Bruno Rovai in New York,” reports Forbes
The state-run oil firm Petrobras has been embroiled in a corruption scandal that has led to a political paralysis.
Brazil’s economy is expected to contract by around 2.6% this year, and higher interest rates worsen the situation.
Brazil is the world’s largest pesticide consumer, leading the global consumption of agrochemicals.
On top of that, Brazil is hosting the Olympic Summer Games in Rio this year.
It’s a hot mess.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Argentine doctors’ group says a pesticide, not Zika, may be causing the microcephaly outbreak in Brazil. When an article appeared in the press last week suggesting this link, Monsanto was quick to jump in clarifying that they did not own Sumitomo but that the company is one of their business partners.
In other words, a large percentage of Monsanto’s agrochemical revenue comes from the region.
Brazil is the world’s largest pesticide consumer. The Ministry of Health coordinates the National Drinking Water Quality Surveillance Program (Vigiagua) with the objective to monitor water quality. Brazilian drinking water norm (Ordinance 2914/2011 from Ministry of Health) includes 27 pesticide active ingredients that need to be monitored every 6 months.
A beverage company needs to jump on this ahead of the Summer Olympics. Maybe Oscar Blues Brewery that shipped water to Flint Michigan can also sponsor water for our Olympic athletes heading to Brazil.
And while Monsanto is quick to claim that they have nothing to do with the Zika virus, their financial and business relationships with Sumitomo, the chemical company making pyriproxyfen, the pesticide just banned in a state of Brazil, has everyone from the Wall Street Journal to Common Dreams talking.
Where does the use of this pesticide stand here in the U.S.? It is undergoing a registration review by the EPA. The review began in 2011. An answer is expected in 2017.
“Massive spraying accentuate the problem, the larvae are everywhere.Only 40% of adult mosquitoes are hit by massive spraying and in those low times the density of gnats in ability to bite us, but within 48 hours the mosquito population is restored with the maturation of the larvae that are not reached by the spraying“Climate change, floods, widespread pesticide that killed biodiversity use, allowed the proliferation of mosquitoes by generating ecological niches in which they advanced.”
If Brazil’s political process is anything like ours when it comes to reviewing the risks associated with these products, it may be some time before we have answers.
But any minute, you can expect another group of doctors to appear in the press, refuting the concerns of this neonatal development specialist.
Pesticides are a big part of Brazil’s and Monsanto’s business model, either directly or through partnerships like the one they have with Sumitomo Chemical Company. In January 2016, Monsanto reported that sales in the company’s agricultural productivity segment, which includes its Roundup weed killer, fell to $820 million from $1.25 billion a year earlier.
The South American agrochemicals market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.3% in 2015-2020 period. Brazil is the largest country in the region consuming around 40-50% of total agrochemicals.
We are in the early stages of this game, and in for a few innings of “he said/she said” science, before this score is settled.
To suspend the use of this pesticide, given what is happening to babies in the area, like the pediatric and neonatal specialists are calling for, is a precautionary move that parents around the world can relate to.
If the pesticide in your pants was connected to suicides in India, would you pay more attention to the undies you buy?
“Cotton is considered the world’s dirtiest crop due to its heavy use of pesticides. Aldicarb, cotton’s second best-selling insecticide and most acutely poisonous to humans and wildlife, is still used in 25 countries, including the U.S., where 16 states reported it in their groundwater. The dangers are recognized by the EPA and they have signaled its phase out in 2018,” reports the Rodale Institute in their paper, Chemical Cotton.
Eight of the top 10 pesticides most commonly used on U.S. conventionally produced cotton were classified as moderately to highly hazardous by the World Health Organization.
Conventionally grown cotton uses more insecticides than any other crop in the world. It is estimated that each year cotton producers use as much as 25 percent of the world’s insecticides.
Five of the top nine pesticides used on cotton in the U.S. (cyanide, dicofol, naled, propargite, and trifluralin) are KNOWN cancer-causing chemicals. All nine are classified by the U.S. EPA as Category I and II— the most dangerous chemicals.
The number of pesticides presently on the market that were registered before being tested to determine if they caused cancer, birth defects or wildlife toxicity: 400. (US EPA Pesticide Registration Progress Report, 1/93).
One of the commonly used pesticides on cotton throughout the world, endosulfan, leached from cotton fields into a creek in Lawrence County, Alabama during heavy rains in 1995. Within days 245,000 fish were killed over 16 mile stretch. 142,000 pounds of endosulfan were used in California in 1994.
Cotton (83%) is one of the top four GMO crops produced in the world.
On an average, 90 percent of U.S. cotton in 2010 was genetically engineered, according to a USDA survey.
We go organic with our food. We can go organic with our undies, because we can and must do better. Our bodies and our babies depend on it.
