CDC finds weed killer tied to cancer in over 80 pct of US urine samples
In fresh evidence of the pervasive nature of pesticides, more than 80 percent of urine samples drawn from children and adults participating in a US health study contained a weedkilling chemical linked to cancer and other health problems.
The June 30 report by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that out of 2,310 urine samples collected, 1,885 were laced with detectable traces of glyphosate, the active ingredient in herbicides sold around the world, including the widely used Roundup brand.
New evidence of pesticide links to cancer
Building on years of research that shows links between agricultural chemicals and cancer, researchers say they have found fresh evidence tying certain pesticides to cancers in children and adults in 11 western U.S. states.
Analyzing federal pesticide data and state health registries, the research team reported a close association between the use of pesticides called fumigants and the development of cancers in people living in the states analyzed.
The study, published last month in the journal GeoHealth, is the first to analyze the geospatial distribution of cancer incidence with pesticide use in the Western United States. The authors are three researchers from the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute at the University of Idaho and three researchers from Northern Arizona University.
Guest column: The Roundup reckoning: Farmworkers win key glyphosate decision
Earlier this month, a court decision about a chemical called glyphosate garnered headlines in newspapers across the country. And rightly so: glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. The pesticide is sprayed on roughly 285 million U.S. acres, and is so popular globally that it is the world’s most widely used herbicide.
For decades, Monsanto and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have assured us that glyphosate herbicides are safe. But those assurances have increasingly come under challenge by evolving science.
Supreme Court again rejects Bayer bid for review of Roundup loss
The US Supreme Court on Monday dealt another blow to Bayer AG’s effort to defend itself against ongoing litigation over allegations that Roundup herbicide causes cancer, denying the company’s request for a review of a California trial loss.
In declining to take up the case, the court let stand an $87 million award won by Alva and Alberta Pilliod. The jury originally ordered more than $2 billion in damages for the married couple, but the award was later cut by the court. Each of the Pilliods alleged they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after extensive use of Monsanto’s Roundup products.
A history of deadly chemical facility disasters prompts calls for EPA to help
When the explosions shook her North Carolina home, Jazmine Webster wasted no time racing outside to investigate the series of loud booms that rattled her Winston-Salem neighborhood one late January evening.
The billowing smoke Webster witnessed pointed clearly to the culprit – the Winston Weaver Co., Inc. fertilizer plant a few blocks from her home was on fire. Along with the smoke, Webster could smell something unusual in the air, “definitely a chemical,” she recalled in a recent interview.
Bayer wins latest Roundup cancer trial; tied 3-to-3 with plaintiffs for court wins
A Kansas City, Mo., jury on Thursday dismissed claims by a man who blamed his cancer on exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, agreeing with the company that the weed killer was not the source of the man’s disease.
The conclusion of the month-long trial gives Monsanto owner Bayer three courtroom wins in a row and brings the nationwide litigation battle to a 3-to-3 tie: the first three trial wins went to the plaintiffs’ side and the last three to the defense.
“The jury’s verdict in favor of the company brings this trial to a successful conclusion and is consistent with the evidence in this case that Roundup does not cause cancer…” Bayer said in a statement.
EPA’s biofuel targets are not achievable, refiners say
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new biofuels production targets announced last week are unachievable and “bewildering” given already high fuel costs, according to leading refinery industry players.
In the renewable fuel standard (RFS) rule unveiled on Friday, the EPA established a total renewable fuel goal for 2022 at 20.63 billion gallons. The agency also set a cellulosic biofuel goal at 0.63 billion gallons; a goal for biomass-based diesel at 2.76 billion gallons; and an advanced biofuel goal at 5.63 billion gallons.
As farmers struggle with PFAS ‘forever chemicals,’ Maine races for solutions
For the past 18 years, Maine farmer Bill Pluecker has worked long hours tending to his family’s organic vegetable farm, growing crops he sells directly to consumers through a community agricultural program.
Working on the farm is a job that Pluecker juggles with his elected position as a state lawmaker, and the combination of roles gives Pluecker particular insight into a devastatingly broad environmental contamination problem farmers are facing throughout Maine, and around the United States.
The problem is PFAS. Often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down and can persist indefinitely, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have become recognized as a significant health and environmental threat with long tenacles. Researchers have found PFAS contaminating water, soil, food, and even the bodies of humans and animals around the world.
Widely used in consumer goods and industry since the 1940s, PFAS include more than 9,000 synthetic chemicals that build up in living tissue and can endanger health.
“It’s overwhelming; it’s in our products, in our bodies, in our food system,” said Pluecker, who is grateful that his own farm appears not to be contaminated with the PFAS he calls “poison.”
Warning of food and gas price hikes, critics fight EPA rule to boost biofuels
With the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) poised to finalize a rule setting annual biofuel production goals, industry players from jet fuel producers to pet food makers are warning the rule will hike already rising food and gas prices and exacerbate supply shortages.
The renewable fuel standard (RFS) rule, due to be finalized Friday under a deadline set in an April 22 consent decree, is seen by its supporters as a key step in lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fighting climate change. Biofuels proponents say there is sufficient feedstock – renewable material which can be used or converted to use as transportation fuel, such as corn – to satisfy ambitious RFS goals while also meeting needs for non-fuel uses like food.
But critics say anticipated RFS annual production target increases will have massive and widespread negative effects on everything from grocery store prices to fuel supplies.
Monsanto’s former CEO testifies in Roundup trial, points to EPA safety findings
Former Monsanto chief Hugh Grant spent several hours on the witness stand on Tuesday – testifying for the first time in front of a jury at a Roundup trial – telling the court repeatedly that global regulators had found no evidence that the company’s herbicides cause cancer.
Under sharp questioning from the plaintiff’s attorney in the case, Grant answered questions about whether or not Monsanto had a duty to warn consumers of a cancer risk by saying there was no such established risk.
“The product had been examined and studied almost continuously for 40 years around the world and had never been deemed to be a carcinogen,” he said. “It’s a circumstance that never occurred. There was never, never a need to communicate such a hypothetical.”
During his 37 years at the company, Grant said: “The reality is that based on regulatory examination almost constantly during that entire period the product was never found to cause cancer.”