| Pesticide Action Network

Indian officials push Dow to pay $1.1bn to Bhopal victims

On Dec. 6, three days after the anniversary of the 1984 Bhopal pesticide plant explosion, India’s Attorney General asked the country’s supreme court to force Dow Chemical to pay $1.1 billion in compensation to victims, reports the Wall Street Journal. The move follows on persistent advocacy and recent trials in India and around the world to hold Dow accountable for the liabilities of Union Carbide, acquired by Dow in 2001. The tragedy is now estimated to have caused 20,000 deaths and some 500,000 injuries.

Dec 6, 2010

Pesticide Actio...

Tags:

Dow

Bhopal

Patagonia promotes organic cotton & the Drift Catcher

The winter Patagonia clothing catalog in North American mailboxes this week features more than nifty outdoor adventure duds. For 15 years, all of the cotton products for sale have been made from 100% organic fiber. And Pesticide Action Network is among a handful non-profit organizations profiled. Patagonia is a long-term supporter of PAN’s campaign for sustainable agriculture and against the use of toxic pesticides like endosulfan that are used in cotton production around the world (including in the U.S. until the phaseout won this year is completed). Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land yet uses 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other crop.

Dec 6, 2010

Pesticide Actio...

PAN pushes a 'Healthy Children & Green Jobs Platform' in CA

Issues:

Safe Strawberry Campaign

Today, PAN joined a diverse coalition of farmworker, children’s health, farm, and environmental groups to release our priorities for the incoming Brown administration. Healthy Children & Green Jobs: A Platform for Pesticide Reform lays out scientifically-grounded priorities for protecting children’s health and supporting healthy, safe and climate-friendly agriculture and pest management in California.

Nov 30, 2010

Kathryn Gilje

DDT can make malaria worse

DDT ceased being the "go to" tool in the malaria fighter's tool box more than 50 years ago when mosquito populations started developing resistance and when better, safer tools began to come online. It's still available today, but the chemical's usefulness is extremely limited. Now, new research shows that in some circumstances spraying DDT is not only ineffective, but it may actually increase malaria transmission.

Nov 29, 2010

Karl Tupper

Half a billion & 300+ lobbyists: How biotech keeps Congress in line

Issues:

Food & Agriculture

Pesticides & Profit

The 50 biggest biotech and agrochemical trade groups spent over $572 million from 1999 to 2010 on lobbying. That’s more than half a billion dollars! According to a new report from Food & Water Watch, the annual rate was a steady $30-$40 million per year until about 2006, when this industry apparently began courting Congress in earnest — as the annual figure nearly doubles between 2006 and 2010. And as Business Week reports, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) — the world's largest biotech lobby group — spent over $2 million in the third quarter of 2010 alone, lobbying Congress as well as the National Institute of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, Agriculture Department, Health and Human Services Department, Food and Drug Administration and other agencies, to keep genetically engineered (GE) crops and animals unregulated and on the market.

Nov 22, 2010

Marcia Ishii-Eiteman

Thanksgiving math: the false calculus of pesticide residues

Issues:

Food & Agriculture

Pesticides & Profit

Frontline Communities

In my family Thanksgiving means cranberries, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole. So I decided to check these foods out on WhatsOnMyFood.org. The results weren’t exactly appetizing. Here’s what the USDA found, after washing:

Green beans: 44 different pesticides with the most commonly detected being acephate, a highly neurotoxic organophosphate insecticide. One sample had 200 micrograms of it per 100 gram serving (slightly more than one cup). That may not sound like a lot, but it's twice the EPA's level of concern for children.

Nov 22, 2010

Karl Tupper

Former EPA head joins Scotts Miracle-Gro board

Issues:

Food & Agriculture

Pesticides & Profit

The New York Times is reporting that Stephen Johnson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Bush, has joined the board of directors of Scotts Miracle-Gro. The company is the world's largest producer of chemicals for the lawn care and garden sectors.

Not that this should come as a shock — we've long noted the cozy relationships between agencies like EPA and the companies they're supposed to regulate. And the EPA under Johnson was particularly friendly to the pesticide industry. Some examples:

Nov 19, 2010

Karl Tupper

Seriously? Chemical industry pressure keeps BPA in baby bottles

Issues:

Pesticides & Profit

Frontline Communities

On Capitol Hill today, the chemical industry squashed a bi-partisan effort to ban the controversial chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) from baby bottles and children's drinking cups. Really guys?

Protecting kids from toxic chemicals should be a no-brainer, right? Especially when the science is so strong, the scientists themselves are calling for action.

Nov 18, 2010

Kristin Schafer

From Harvest of Shame to Harvest of Hope

Farmworkers, farmers and eaters have joined together to change the face of U.S. agriculture. The Fair Food Project focuses on both the serious need for change as well innovations leading that change—bringing wholesome food and farming back home, to our tables, one family farm at a time.

There’s no better time to celebrate and recognize these innovators than Thanksgiving, and this one in particular.

Nov 18, 2010

Pesticide Actio...

DDT promoters schooled by scientists (again)

Issues:

Pesticides & Profit

Persistent Poisons

"Stop raising doubt where there is consensus." "Take an online course in epidemiology!" These were but two of the admonitions scientists and malariologists directed at Africa Fighting Malaria's representative at a Geneva symposium on malaria last week.

Richard Tren, who spoke at the meeting for Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM), is an economist by training whose public career has included manufacturing doubt about climate change as well as spreading misinformation about the effectiveness of DDT in controlling malaria.

Nov 18, 2010

Pesticide Actio...