Pesticide Action Network's blog

On Wednesday, PAN joined the ever-growing Occupy movement in Oakland and the supermajority of Americans frustrated with corporate control of finances, homes and yes — food.

PAN and partners — including Californians for Pesticide Reform and Food & Water Watch — carved out a space among the thousands of concerned people gathered in Downtown Oakland to discuss the challenges posed by our corporate-controlled food and farming system.

For over a year, PAN has been watching EPA’s long-overdue review of atrazine, a common herbicide and potent endocrine disruptor. From the outset we've called for reliance on science not funded by industry – and we've been disappointed. Of the roughly 25 health-related studies submitted for the review's final session, 10 were not available to the public and exempt from the rigors of peer review. These 10 ‘secret’ studies were also industry-funded.

Now the agency is accepting comments on a new petition to pull the use of atrazine, a petition that points to misleading industry-funded science as the basis for keeping this widely used herbicide on the market.

Join us at the Food Security 15th Annual Conference in Oakland from November 4-8. The conference will be held at the Oakland Marriott, 1001 Broadway, Oakland, CA.

This year’s conference theme is Food Justice: Honoring our Roots, Growing the Movement. Register now for 5 exciting and inspiring days of field trips, plenary presentations, hands-on workshops, “food movies,” prize ceremonies and more. 

Victims of the 1984 Bhopal pesticide plant explosion are working with British Members of Parliament, Amnesty International and others to expose and oppose sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympics by Dow Chemical Company. Dow has been denying liability for cleanup of the Bhopal site and reparations for victims and their survivors ever since it bought the plant’s former owner, Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), in 2001.

 “The company's name will be emblazoned on the £7m artwork 'wrap' around the main stadium, guaranteeing months of exposure,” according to the UK Independent. Dow and UCC are defendants in a litigation case in India for clean-up of the Bhopal pesticide factory site.

New science confirms that honey bees are at great risk when simultaneously exposed to parasites and pesticides.

Two pesticides of concern, fipronil and thiacloprid (a neonicotinoid), operate in combination with a common pathogen to dramatically increase bee death. And they do so at very low, sub-lethal levels.