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GroundTruth: PAN's blog on pesticides, food & health

Report from Sacramento: Corporate influence on the hot seat

It's often unnerving to face multinational corporate capture of chemical policy and science. I certainly felt like I'd been kicked in the gut last December, when, after a diligent, multi-year review that actually kept science and the health of Californians as core commitments, chemical company influence won out as California legalized "one of the most toxic chemicals on earth" — despite the analysis and recommendations of their own scientists and overwhelming public opposition.

At long last: EPA releases pesticide use statistics

I can't tell you how many times I've been asked for figures on pesticide use — it must happen at least once a week. "How many pounds of pesticides are used in the U.S. each year?" "Is pesticide use going up or down?" "What's the most commonly used insecticide in the U.S.?" and so on. The best I could do was point to 10-year old numbers.

Predictably, atrazine review caught up in federal budget shenanigans

If you've been following the budget battle that's currently being waged in Congress, then you probably already know that House Republicans are attempting to use the process to score big wins for corporate polluters. For example, they're proposing to gut the EPA and prevent it from doing anything about climate change and to cut federal conservation programs. It should come as no surprise then that the EPA's atrazine review is also targeted.

Hearing to probe rushed approval of methyl iodide

On Tuesday, February 22, the California Assembly's Health and Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials committees will hold a joint oversight hearing examining the rushed circumstances under which methyl iodide was registered for use as a fumigant in California's strawberry fields.

Coalition tells new Congress to stop playing politics with health

The public interest community came together this week to demand that lawmakers in Washington, DC, stop playing politics with public health and welfare. PAN joined a coalition of labor, environmental, consumer advocacy, health care, and other public interest organizations - 72 groups in all - in calling on the new Congress to oppose a fast-moving bill that aims to halt new protections designed to safeguard the American people.

Demand justice for Maria Isabel

You may remember the tragic death of 17-year-old farmworker Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez back in 2008. Maria died of heat stroke when her body temperature rose to 108 degrees in the scorching heat of the San Joaquin County vineyard where she was working. She was pregnant at the time.

Maria’s family is finally getting its day in court, and our colleagues at United Farm Workers of America (UFW) tell us that her employer may walk away without being held accountable for her death.

Yet again, 'safer' pesticides prove harmful

Turns out a new generation of supposedly safer pesticides isn't so safe after all. In the latest entry of a growing body of evidence, scientists announced last week that pyrethroid pesticides — now in hundreds of pest control products sold for home use — can interfere with the healthy development of an infant's nervous system when moms are exposed during pregnancy. Here we go again.

History tells us that substituting one type of pesticide for another "safer" variety just doesn't work out very well.

EPA floats the idea of legalizing drift; CropLife thinks it doesn't go far enough

"Spray drift" is the name given to droplets of pesticides that land anywhere they are not supposed to — like on people's heads, in lakes and streams, or on crops in neighboring fields. It can cause illness, damage crops, and harm ecosystems. And so in 2007 the EPA began trying to figure out how to do better job of keeping it from happening.

Festival for Social Justice

This week in Dakar, Senegal, 75,00 people from 132 countries have converged for the 11^th World Social Forum—an inspiring and energizing week of workshops, seminars, panels and celebratory cultural events. The forum is being held at Cheikh Anta Diop University, where PAN Africa's Dr. Abou Thiam teaches. This year, the theme of the World Social Forum, “Another World is Possible,” has been given new meaning to Africans, with the electrifying developments in Egypt and Tunisia uppermost in many participants' minds.

"Climate-smart" agriculture?

In a new report, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stressed the need to transform agriculture and adopt “climate-smart” practices. No news there. The real surprise is what "climate-smart" ag does not mean for FAO.