News

February 17, 2025

“Out of time” – Short film documents tragic saga of pesticide-poisoned Nebraska town

For decades, Mead, Nebraska, was a peaceful rural town—until toxins generated by the area ethanol plant poisoned Mead’s land, water, and air. Farm to Fuel, a short documentary, builds on investigative reporting by The New Lede, co-published with The Guardian, which exposed how the plant’s reckless disposal of pesticide-laced waste created an environmental disaster. At the heart of the crisis are neonicotinoid pesticides, still widely used across the US despite mounting evidence of their harm.

TNL’s Alex Hinton traveled to Mead, Nebraska, where he met with farmer Stan Kaiser and his family, who shared their story of environmental devastation, previously reported by The New Lede. Hinton spoke with Dr. Judy Wu-Smart of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, whose groundbreaking research has been crucial in exposing the dangers of neonicotinoid pesticides, and former State Sen. Carol Blood, who has been leading the fight for stronger regulations to prevent tragedies like this from happening again.

Mead’s fight for justice is far from over. Despite the plant’s shutdown, its toxic legacy lingers, raising urgent questions about corporate negligence, environmental responsibility, and the safety of rural communities across America.

February 13, 2025

It’s not just RFK Jr — Opposition to fluoride in drinking water grows

By Douglas Main

Opposition to the US practice of adding fluoride to drinking water supplies has been growing as more evidence accumulates linking fluoride exposure to potential harmful brain impacts in children. Now, the future of the practice could be in doubt, with Thursday’s confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Kennedy, an environmental health lawyer, has been calling for an end to fluoridation in public drinking water for years. And though it is the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that has regulatory oversight of fluoride levels in water supplies, the HHS plays a role in policy by publishing recommendations for fluoridation that many states follow.

An HHS task force currently recommends fluoridation based on “strong evidence of effectiveness in reducing tooth decay.”

But that could change. In his new role, Kennedy is widely expected to push for guidance against fluoridation.

Since Kennedy posted on X on November 2, 2024, that Donald Trump would end fluoridation if elected, it opened a floodgate of attention to the issue, said Chris Neurath, science research director with the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Network.

That, combined with a high profile recent court case that ordered the EPA to re-evaluate the safety of fluoridation, and accumulating evidence of harm, have all caused a “snowball effect” of attention, according to Neurath.

“This elevation of the issue into the mainstream really is unique in the last 80 years,” Neurath said. Though evidence of harm keeps growing, he said, “the facts haven’t really changed — but the awareness of them has.”

February 13, 2025

Illnesses and deaths from food outbreaks skyrocketed in 2024, report finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Hospitalizations and deaths from foodborne illnesses more than doubled in 2024 over the prior year, with most people sickened in a small number of high-profile outbreaks involving lunch meat, eggs, cucumbers and other commonly consumed foods, according to a report published Thursday.

The report comes as some US lawmakers are pushing legislation that would bar the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) from implementing a new regulatory framework proposed under former President Joe Biden aimed at addressing Salmonella contamination in raw poultry.

A total of 1,392 were sickened from contaminated food in 2024, up from 1,1118 people in 2023, and the health impacts of the outbreaks was more severe, with 487 people hospitalized last year compared to 230 the previous year. Nineteen people died after eating contaminated food in 2024, compared to eight in 2023, according to the report.

Across 13 total outbreaks in 2024, almost all of the illnesses were caused by E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella bacteria, including a large outbreak of illnesses tied to E. coli contaminated onions in McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers. A large outbreak that landed 60 people in the hospital was linked to listeria-contaminated products traced back to a now-shuttered Boar’s Head plant in Virginia. The number of food recalls because of Listeria, Salmonella or E. coli increased significantly in 2024, representing 39% of all recalls.

“This report serves as an important reminder that there cannot be any cuts to food safety funding or rollbacks in regulations,” said Brian Ronholm, the director of food policy for the nonprofit Consumer Reports who was not involved in the study. “Industry, regulators and consumers must be constantly vigilant about food safety and the data in this report shows that there is still much work to be done and improvements to be made.”

February 12, 2025

Microplastic pollution found “pervasive” in Antarctic snow

By Douglas Main

New research has found significant levels of tiny microplastics within Antarctic snow from multiple locations across the world’s most remote wilderness, findings that reinforce concerns that no part of the planet is safe from plastic pollution.

The paper, published this month in Science of the Total Environment, provides evidence that earlier studies have underestimated the extent of microplastic contamination in the region.

The first such study on the subject, published in 2022, found an average of 29 particles per liter of snow sampled. The new study, which used techniques that allow for greater detection of tiny materials, found that “microplastics were pervasive” at more than 3,000 particles per liter, with an average of around 800 particles. About 95% of these bits were under 50 microns, slightly smaller than the average width of a human hair.

Researchers now know that microplastics are essentially everywhere — the remote Amazon, inside human brains, plant roots, clouds — but to find them in such levels in the world’s most remote wilderness still came as a shock.

“It was surprising to see such high concentrations of microplastics in areas with a limited human footprint,” said study co-author Emily Rowlands, a researcher with the British Antarctic Survey.

February 11, 2025

“We need it” – Debate over dicamba herbicide in hands of Trump’s EPA

By Richard Mertens

Patsy Hopper dreamed of a home in the country with a garden and lots of trees. What she didn’t count on were the herbicides that would come drifting in, year after year, from the farmland around her, killing vegetables in her garden and wildflowers in the ditches and curling the leaves of the trees she had planted.

“I have a lot of trees dying,” said Hopper, who lives five miles from Urbana, Illinois. “I don’t think they’ll survive.”

Hopper isn’t alone. A popular weed killer called dicamba, which is used in growing crops such as soybeans and cotton, has in recent years become notorious for inflicting widespread damage well beyond the fields where it is sprayed. Dicamba drift, as it’s called, has harmed other farmers’ crops, as well as vegetable gardens, orchards, and natural vegetation. The damage has spawned lawsuits and caused hard feelings in rural communities. It even led to the killing of an Arkansas farmer in 2016.

Farmers have used dicamba to kill weeds since the 1960s. But new formulations developed by Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta to be used with genetically engineered crops tolerant of dicamba wreaked havoc when they came into use roughly 8 years ago, largely because they encouraged farmers to spray dicamba after their crops sprouted. These formulations are marketed to be used ‘over the top’ (OTT) because they are sprayed on top of growing crops, killing weeds but not the genetically engineered crops.

The warm weather that typically accompanies crop growth makes dicamba more prone to volatilize and drift. And since the rollout of the new dicamba products and the OTT use, thousands of incidents of “off-target” damage have been recorded across many states, mostly in the South and Midwest. Millions of acres of soybeans have been damaged.

Last year, a US court banned the use of the dicamba OTT weed killers. Now, as farmers prepare for their next planting season, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is again considering whether to grant approval to dicamba products used with dicamba-tolerant crops. The issue has divided rural communities and fostered heated debate.

Opponents want the use of OTT dicamba halted permanently. But many farmers say they need it. Agrochemical companies developed the dicamba system – new formulations of the herbicide to be used with crops engineered to tolerate it– as an alternative to Monsanto’s widely used chemical-crop system built around the weed killer glyphosate. Millions of acres now sprout weeds resistant to glyphosate, and many farmers say dicamba is among just a few herbicides that still work on the most troublesome weeds in their fields.

“It (dicamba) definitely is a big deal,” said Sam Whitaker, whose family grows rice, soybeans and cotton in Arkansas. “We need it.”

February 10, 2025

High-stakes hearing to debate state law limiting PCB injury claims

By Shannon Kelleher

Lawyers for three teachers in Washington state will face off against attorneys for the former Monsanto company in a key court hearing on Tuesday over alleged PCB-related injuries that could impact similar cases nationwide.

The teachers won a $185 million verdict in 2021 against Monsanto-owner Bayer AG for health problems they said were caused by their exposure to toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in fluorescent lighting in the school where they worked. They alleged Monsanto concealed the dangers of PCBs to elevate company profits.

An appeals court overturned the verdict, then last year the plaintiffs asked the Washington Supreme Court to review the case on three issues, including whether or not a state statute that gives plaintiffs only 12 years to bring product liability claims is constitutional.

Each side will have 30 minutes to argue their positions to Washington Supreme Court panel of justices. The court is also expected to hear competing arguments over whether the plaintiffs should have been able to seek punitive damages and if testimony from a plaintiff’s exposure expert should have been excluded.

More than 200 other teachers, students and family members have sued Bayer alleging brain damage from exposure to PCBs at the same school.

The rest of these cases are “all kind of waiting in the wings behind this appeal,” said Deepak Gupta, an attorney for the plaintiffs with the Gupta Wessler law firm. “If Bayer were to win the statute of repose issue, the rest of the cases from the Washington state school would “just vanish,” he said. “It’s a complete immunity. So, the stakes are really high.”

February 10, 2025

Profiling of pesticide industry opponents halted after company practices exposed

By Carey Gillam, Margot Gibbs and Elena Debre

A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash after its actions were exposed by The New Lede and other reporting partners.

The St. Louis, Mo-based company, v-Fluence, is shuttering the service, which it called a “stakeholder wiki”, that featured personal details about more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops. Among those targeted was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s controversial pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The profiles often provided false and derogatory information about the industry opponents and included home addresses and phone numbers and details about family members, including children.

The profiles were provided to members of a private, invite-only web portal where v-Fluence also offered a range of other information to its roster of more than 1,000 members. The membership included staffers of US regulatory and policy agencies, executives from the world’s largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, academics and others.

The profiling was part of an effort to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports. Lighthouse collaborated with The Guardian, The New Lede, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the September 2024 publication of the investigation.

News of the profiling and the private web portal sparked outrage and threats of litigation by some of the people and organizations profiled.

February 8, 2025

Farm country fight – Battle rages over proposed legal protections for pesticide makers

By Carey Gillam

Pesticide company efforts to push through laws that could block litigation against them is igniting battles in several US farm states and pitting some farm groups against each other.

Laws have been introduced in at least 8 states so far and drafts are circulating in more than 20 states, backed by a deluge of advertising supporting the measures.

The fight is particularly fierce now in Iowa, where opponents call the pesticide-backed proposed law the “Cancer Gag Act”, due to high levels of cancer in Iowa that many fear are linked to the state’s large agricultural use of pesticides. Iowa has the second-highest rate of new cancer cases in the United States and the fastest-growing rate.

Organizers against the Iowa bill are planning a rally at the state capitol on Monday after the state senate voted Feb. 5 to advance the measure. The bill would bar people from suing pesticide manufacturers for failing to warn them of health risks, as long as the product labels are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Opponents say the legislation will rob farmers and others who use pesticides from holding companies accountable in court if their pesticide products cause disease or injury.

“We’re very worried. Our farmers feel that if they have an injuries or illnesses due to their use of a pesticide they should have access to the courts,” said Aaron Lehman, an Iowa corn and soybean farmer who is president of the Iowa Farmers Union. “We just don’t think the playing field should be tilted.”

But backers of the legislation say they’re trying to ensure farmers don’t lose access to beneficial weed killers, insecticide and other chemicals that are commonly used in growing food. They maintain that tort lawyers exploit and entice sick people to bring lawsuits that are not backed by scientific evidence, and such actions should be limited.

Several large farm groups, including the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, are supporting the bill.

The actions in the states come alongside a simultaneous push for changes in federal law that would effectively preempt lawsuits brought by people claiming they developed cancers or other diseases due to their use of pesticides.

February 3, 2025

High levels of microplastics found in human brains

By Douglas Main

A new study has found high concentrations of tiny plastic particles in human brain samples, with levels appearing to climb over time.

The paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, found nanoplastics in each of the brain samples studied, and found a potential link between the presence of the plastics and several types of dementia.

“There’s much more plastic in our brains than I ever would have imagined or been comfortable with,” said Matthew Campen, a doctor and researcher at the University of New Mexico who is the lead author of the study.

The median concentration in brain samples collected from people who died in 2024 was nearly 5 micrograms of plastic per gram of brain tissue, tallying almost 0.5% by weight.

This total was 50% higher than it was just eight year prior, from brain samples acquired in 2016 (for various reasons, most brain samples become available these two years). This suggests the concentration of microplastics found in human brains is going up as plastic waste and microplastic pollution increases.

“You can draw a line — it’s increasing over time. It’s consistent with what you’re seeing in the environment,” Campen said.

January 31, 2025

FDA must set limits on PFAS in food, lawsuit says

By Shannon Kelleher

US regulators are failing to address concerns about toxic PFAS chemicals in foods despite having the scientific tools to do so, according to a lawsuit filed by an environmental group in Tucson, Arizona.

The lawsuit, filed on Jan. 24 in the US District Court for the District of Arizona, follows the submission of a legal petition filed in November 2023 by the Tucson Environmental Justice Task Force that asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to establish limits for certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) the agency has found in blueberries, lettuce, milk, salmon and other foods. The group wants the FDA to take action to remove products from grocery store shelves if PFAS residues are found at the minimum level of detection possible.

“We’re asking [the FDA] to do something that they are required to do under the law, that they failed to do under the law,” said Sandra Daussin, attorney for the plaintiffs and a plaintiff herself.

Under its own regulations, the FDA is required to respond to petitions within 180 days, but the agency failed to address the petition after more than a year, an “arbitrary and capricious” delay, the complaint alleges.

PFAS are a class of thousands of chemicals used for decades across many industries. The chemicals have become ubiquitous in the environment, found in water, soil and the blood of animals and people around the globe. Many types of PFAS have been found to be health hazards, linked to disease and disability. The petition cites connections between seven types of PFAS and “serious life-threatening health effects,” including kidney and liver damage, cancer, neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, and adverse reproductive effects.

The petitioners argue that in August 2023 the FDA developed a validated method detecting up to 30 PFAS chemicals in foods, and thus has an obligation to use that knowledge to set enforceable limits. The group wants the FDA to adjust those limits to be lower if methodology improves to detect smaller concentrations.

The FDA has been testing foods for PFAS contamination since 2019 but has found very little contamination.