Toxic Chemicals Media Articles
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on the toxic chemicals that we're exposed to in our food, household products, environment, and more. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
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Tiny pieces of plastic, widely found in food, water, and air, can harm the development and function of specialized brain cells that regulate reproduction, new research reports. These cells, called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons, act like main switches for puberty and fertility. During early development, they must travel to the right place in the brain and then release hormones in a precise rhythm throughout life. However, in a study recently published in the journal Small, researchers found that polystyrene nanoplastics — fragments thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand — were able to slip into these cells through an unusual “side door.” Once inside, the particles reduced hormone levels, slowed cell movement, and altered genes required for reproductive health. The particles also accumulated in the GnRH neurons, increasing the potential for long-term effects. The results point to plastic pollution as a plausible environmental contributor to disorders such as GnRH deficiency, which is associated with conditions such as delayed puberty and infertility that cannot be fully explained by genetics alone. “These results suggest that [polystyrene nanoplastics] disrupt key physiological functions of GnRH neurons and may act as novel endocrine disruptors, contributing to the pathogenesis of reproductive disorders,” the researchers wrote. Even small disruptions can delay puberty, disrupt menstrual cycles, reduce sperm production or impair fertility.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
America’s factory farms generate nearly a trillion pounds of manure every year, and way too much of it ends up in rivers, lakes and estuaries. Unlike factories, most factory farms aren’t legally responsible for their pollution. Unlike human poop, animal poop isn’t legally required to be treated before it is released into the environment. America’s concentrated animal feeding operations, the industrial livestock farms known as C.A.F.O.s, produce twice as much waste as America’s toilets, but nobody is tracking where or how it gets flushed. C.A.F.O.s keep getting bigger, even though they are wildly unpopular. Polls from the A.S.P.C.A. suggest that 89 percent of Americans are concerned about factory farms and 74 percent want to ban new ones. The critics now include right-wing natural-food advocates as well as left-wing environmentalists and animal rights activists. Like it or not, 99 percent of U.S. meat now comes from factory farms. The solution to pollution from big C.A.F.O.s is not to ban them or even to restrict their size. It’s to regulate them like any other industrial polluter. States enforce the Clean Water Act, and some are more vigilant than others about preventing farmers from applying their manure in ways that tend to wash it into waterways. But a lot still ends up there. A feedlot cow can unload 100 pounds of manure a day, and unlike fracking water, nuclear waste and municipal sewage, nobody’s really responsible for making sure it doesn’t contaminate nature.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on factory farming and toxic chemicals.
Many people don’t think of pesticides when they look at a bouquet of flowers. But they’re full of them. Buying from your local supermarket won’t necessarily put you at risk, say experts – that falls to the growers and florists who handle what the charity describes as “toxic bombs”. Chemicals protect flowers from disease and pests and, as customers want perfect blooms year-round, keep them looking uniform. But research shows they can easily be absorbed through skin contact or inhalation by people exposed for hours every day. Unlike food, there is no upper limit on pesticide residue levels in flowers in the EU, UK or US. Handling flowers every day may well have consequences we don’t yet understand. “There’s a whole group [of pesticides] that cause cancer, or are recognised to probably cause cancer, and [florists] are probably being exposed to them. There’s a whole group that affects reproductive health. They’re probably being exposed to them too,” says [clinical toxicology professor Michael] Eddleston. “What I would worry about as a florist is long-term chronic exposure to multiple pesticides … which are simply not being controlled and that can’t be safe.” Many florists only hear about the risks through word of mouth. Roisin Taylor ... who has mostly worked with locally grown stems, says the chalky film that covers her hands when she touches imported flowers is obvious. And she knows to wash her hands thoroughly before she eats lunch.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Parkinson’s is the second most common neurological disease in the United States. For decades, Parkinson’s research has focused on genetics. Today, published research on the genetics behind Parkinson’s outnumbers all other potential causes six to one. But Parkinson’s rates in the US have doubled in the past 30 years. And studies suggest they will climb another 15 to 35 percent in each coming decade. This is not how an inherited genetic disease is supposed to behave. In a study of half a million Britons, Oxford researchers determined that lifestyle and the environment is 10 times more likely to explain early death than genetics. “I think [the industrial solvent] TCE is the most important cause of Parkinson’s in the US,” says [Parkinson’s expert] Ray Dorsey. Parkinson’s is a growing pandemic, and up to 90 percent of cases are caused by chemicals in our environment. Cut exposures like TCE and pesticides, and we can “end Parkinson’s” as we know it. Since the 1990s, the number of Americans with chronic disease has ballooned to more than 75 percent of adults, per the CDC. Only 1 percent of the roughly 350,000 chemicals in use in the United States have ever been tested for safety. In its 55-year history, the EPA has banned or restricted about a dozen (by contrast, the EU has banned more than 2,000). Paraquat, the pesticide that appears to cause Parkinson’s in farmworkers, has been banned in Europe and China but remains available in the US.
Note: The 1982 neurotoxic contaminant MPTP case was a turning point in showing how a single toxin could instantly trigger Parkinson’s by destroying a specific part of the brain. Scientists later discovered that paraquat — a widely used US pesticide banned in over 70 countries — attacks the brain in much the same way. As rates of Parkinson’s have tragically surged especially among the farming community, neurologists now say the disease is largely environmentally caused, driven by long-term exposure to chemicals like paraquat. A 2024 Politico article put it bluntly: “Parkinson’s is a man-made disease.” Read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Research on ALS, a debilitating condition also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease that leads to muscle weakness and death, has found a link between exposure to pesticides and disease development. A new study led by ... Alison O’Neil provides insight into how a specific pesticide damages the nerve cells affected in ALS patients. The paper, published in the prestigious multidisciplinary journal PLOS One, is a follow up to another study O’Neil conducted on the pesticide known as cis-chlordane, which is banned but persists in the environment. “The goal of the study was to try to figure out why cis-chlordane is able to kill motor neurons,” which are the nerve cells that die in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), she said. “It turns out that [the pesticides] are affecting the mitochondria, which are the powerhouse of the cell,” said O’Neil. Without mitochondria, the motor neurons weaken and die. This insight points to potential for more effective treatments for a disease when current therapies extend life by only a few months. “The implications of that finding helps us determine what kind of drugs people need,” said O’Neil. Since there is clearly an environmental component in most cases of ALS, said Clackson, the research can help pinpoint what is contributing to the disease and potentially change disease trajectory. “If we see these early biomarkers, say pesticides in the blood, then we can perhaps treat them earlier and have a completely different outcome,” he said.
Note: It's recently come out that the popular pesticide paraquat probably causes Parkinson's disease. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Imet my best friend, Ursula Guidry, in college. Ursula died from cancer when her children were in preschool. We’ll never know if her death was pure “bad luck,” or whether it had something to do with growing up amidst plastics-manufacturing facilities. What we know for certain is that the toxic chemicals emitted by those facilities can ravage the human body. It’s against that backdrop that I watch Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin work feverishly to dismantle the safeguards protecting people from toxic chemical exposures. The U.S. averages one chemical spill, fire, or explosion every three days, but Zeldin’s attacks almost guarantee an increase. Every part of the petrochemical supply chain puts communities at risk, including the nation’s millions of miles of pipelines. In Satartia, Miss., a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide used in oil drilling ruptured from heavy rains and floods, spewing carbon dioxide for hours. The carbon dioxide displaced oxygen in the air, so car engines stopped running and people could not escape. Dozens were hospitalized. Acute CO2 emissions cause heart malfunction and death by asphyxiation. Extreme flooding can also submerge Superfund toxic waste dumps. Nearly 1 in 4 Americans live within three miles of a Superfund site. Zeldin’s plans are a gift to the fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations. For the rest of us, they are an explosive and hostile attack on our children, our families, and our best friends.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
A scientific study that regulators around the world relied on for decades to justify continued approval of glyphosate was quietly retracted last Friday over serious ethical issues including secret authorship by Monsanto employees – raising questions about the pesticide-approval process in the U.S. and globally. The April 2000 study by Gary Williams, Robert Kroes and Ian Munro – which concluded glyphosate does not pose a health risk to humans at typical exposure levels – was ghostwritten by Monsanto employees, and was “based solely on unpublished studies from Monsanto,” wrote Martin van den Berg, co-editor-in-chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. It also ignored “multiple other long-term chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies” that were available at the time. Some of the study authors may also have received undisclosed financial compensation from Monsanto, he noted. The retraction came years after internal corporate documents first revealed in 2017 that Monsanto employees were heavily involved in drafting the paper. “What took them so long to retract it?” asked Michael Hansen, senior scientist of advocacy at Consumer Reports. The ghostwritten paper is in the top 0.1% of citations among academic papers discussing glyphosate. The retraction exposes the flaws of a regulatory system that relies heavily on corporate research, and an academic publishing system that is often used as a tool for corporate product defense.
Note: Our latest Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals and corruption in science.
November 30 marks the International Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare. Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed an estimated 20 million gallons of herbicides over southern Vietnam, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, and parts of Cambodia. Nearly two-thirds was Agent Orange, later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) — a potent, long-lasting dioxin. TCDD is a known human carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor, linked to cancers, reproductive disorders, and birth defects that can span generations. By the letter of the CWC, Agent Orange is not classified as a “chemical weapon.” If you ask a Vietnam veteran suffering from Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, or any of the 19 types of conditions the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) associates with Agent Orange exposure, you’ll hear a very different story. To them, it was every bit a weapon designed to destroy life and health. A 2018 Government Accountability Office report found that over 757,000 veterans — about one in four who served — were receiving benefits linked to Agent Orange. The 2022 PACT Act broadened that circle to veterans who served in other areas where Agent Orange was used. By 2024, more than 84,000 new Vietnam-era veterans were granted compensation, many due to exposure. Fifty years after the Vietnam War ended, the toxic legacy of Agent Orange and other dioxins lingers on.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and toxic chemicals.
The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency has classified atrazine – the second most widely used herbicide in the United States – as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” adding to growing concerns about toxic exposures in the nation’s farm belt. The evaluation means the first and second most widely used herbicides in the U.S. – glyphosate and atrazine – are now both considered probable human carcinogens by the world’s leading independent cancer-hazard authority. Atrazine is banned in the European Union and other countries due to health and environmental concerns, but remains widely used in the U.S., where it is a common contaminant in drinking water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite these concerns, U.S. regulators allow its continued use. The new assessment by the WHO’s cancer agency comes 10 years after the agency’s landmark finding that glyphosate, the world’s most heavily used herbicide, is also “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Both atrazine and glyphosate are also endocrine disruptors, meaning they can disrupt key hormone systems that regulate growth, development and metabolism. Both herbicides are also largely produced by companies outside the United States. Syngenta, owned by ChemChina, produces most of the atrazine used in the U.S., while Bayer, based in Germany, is the dominant producer of glyphosate. The cancer designation for atrazine comes amid reports of rising cancer rates across the U.S. Corn Belt.
Note: It's recently come out that the popular pesticide paraquat probably causes Parkinson's disease. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Poisonous dust falls from the sky over the town of Ogijo, near Lagos, Nigeria. It coats kitchen floors, vegetable gardens, churchyards and schoolyards. The toxic soot billows from crude factories that recycle lead for American companies. With every breath, people inhale invisible lead particles and absorb them into their bloodstream. The metal seeps into their brains, wreaking havoc on their nervous systems. It damages livers and kidneys. Toddlers ingest the dust by crawling across floors, playgrounds and backyards, then putting their hands in their mouths. As the United States tightened regulations on lead processing ... finding domestic lead became a challenge. So the auto industry looked overseas to supplement its supply. In doing so, car and battery manufacturers pushed the health consequences of lead recycling onto countries where enforcement is lax, testing is rare and workers are desperate for jobs. Seventy people living near and working in factories around Ogijo volunteered to have their blood tested. Seven out of 10 had harmful levels of lead. Every worker had been poisoned. More than half the children tested in Ogijo had levels that could cause lifelong brain damage. Manufacturers that use Nigerian lead make batteries for major carmakers and retailers such as Amazon, Lowe’s and Walmart. All this is avoidable. Lead batteries can indeed be recycled as cleanly as advertised. But that requires millions of dollars in technology.
Note: This exposé reveals a brutal human and environmental toll behind cobalt used in batteries for phones and electric vehicles, where men, women, and children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo dig toxic, uranium-laced earth with bare hands and face deadly tunnel collapses, widespread disease, miscarriages, birth defects, sexual violence, and extreme poverty—while much of this suffering remains hidden within global supply chains. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals.
Insect-eating bird populations in France appear to be making a tentative recovery after a ban on bee-harming pesticides, according to the first study to examine how wildlife is returning in Europe. Neonicotinoids are the world’s most common class of insecticides, widely used in agriculture and for flea control in pets. By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France’s population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%. These included blackbirds, blackcaps and chaffinches, which feed on insects as adults and as chicks. The results could be mirrored across the EU, where the neonicotinoid ban came into effect in late 2018, but research has not yet been done elsewhere. The lead researcher, Thomas Perrot from the Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversité in Paris, said: “Even a few percentage [points’] increase is meaningful – it shows the ban made a difference. Our results clearly point to neonicotinoid bans as an effective conservation measure for insectivorous birds.” Like the EU, the UK banned neonicotinoids for outdoor general use in 2018, although they can be used in exceptional circumstances. They are still widely used in the US, which has lost almost 3 billion insectivorous birds since the 1970s. Sustainable farming, which reduced pesticides and restored semi-natural habitats, would help bird populations recover.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.
For decades, Khoji Wesselius has noticed the oily scent of pesticides during spraying periods when the wind has blown through his tiny farming village in a rural corner of the Netherlands. Now, after volunteering in an experiment to count how many such substances people are subjected to, Wesselius and his wife are one step closer to understanding the consequences of living among chemical-sprayed fields of seed potato, sugar beet, wheat, rye and onion. “We were shocked,” said Wesselius ... who had exposure to eight different pesticides through his skin, with even more chemicals found through tests of his blood, urine and stool. “I was contaminated by 11 sorts of pesticides. My wife, who is more strict in her organic nourishment, had seven sorts of pesticides.” Regulators closely monitor dietary intake of pesticides when deciding whether they are safe enough for the market, but little attention has been paid to the effects of breathing them in or absorbing them through the skin. According to a new study, even people who live far from farms are exposed to several different types of pesticides from non-dietary sources. The researchers got 641 participants in 10 European countries to wear silicone wristbands continuously for one week to capture external exposure to 193 pesticides. In laboratory tests, they detected 173 of the substances they tested for, with pesticides found in every wristband and an average of 20 substances for every person who took part.
Note: Our latest Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption and toxic chemicals.
There are 34 ingredients in M&Ms, and, according to Mars, the company that produces the candy, at least 30 countries – from Ivory Coast to New Zealand – are involved in supplying them. Each has its own supply chain that transforms the raw materials into ingredients – cocoa into cocoa liquor, cane into sugar, petroleum into blue food dye. The environmental impact of ultra-processed foods – like M&Ms – is less clear and is only now starting to come into focus. One reason they have been so difficult to assess is the very nature of UPFs: these industrially made foods include a huge number of ingredients and processes to put them together, making it nearly impossible to track. Since 1850, agricultural expansion has driven almost 90% of global deforestation, which has been responsible for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Getting an exact measure of the environmental toll of UPFs is nearly impossible, given that, definitionally, UPFs consist of many ingredients and a high volume of opaque processes. Ingredients aren’t just mixed together like one would do to make a stew at home. Instead, these ingredients are chemically modified, some parts stripped away, and flavors, dyes or textures added in – and it’s unclear what the cost of these processes are because so many suppliers and components are involved. Another reason is that all UPFs (again, definitionally) are the creations of food companies that have little incentive to disclose their environmental footprint.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption and climate change.
Top regulatory officials met with agricultural and chemical industry representatives dozens of times in the first few months after President Donald Trump took office. [The meetings] were followed by a series of regulatory rollbacks and a downplaying of pesticide concerns by the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission. From February to mid-May, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leaders accepted meetings with representatives from at least 50 industry associations and companies, including agricultural and chemical giants such as Bayer, Corteva, BASF, Dow and the agrichemical lobbying group CropLife America, as well as the American Soybean Association, the National Cotton Council and others. Critics of the agrichemical industry said corporate influence in regulatory matters was underscored earlier this month when the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission released its long-anticipated report on how to address chronic disease and clean up the food supply. The final version was significantly more friendly to the agricultural industry than a May MAHA report that cited the health risks posed by the widely used farm chemicals glyphosate and atrazine. The September report took aim at synthetic dyes and junk food, among other things, but deleted references to glyphosate and atrazine and made no mention of pesticide exposure routes or risks.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Pesticides once appeared to be a clear target for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s desire to “make America healthy again.” Before becoming the health secretary, he described Monsanto, the maker of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, as “enemy of every admirable American value,” and vowed to “ban the worst agricultural chemicals already banned in other countries.” Since he came to power, many of Kennedy’s fans have waited eagerly for him to do just that. Kennedy has yet to satisfy them: In the latest MAHA action plan on children’s health, released last week, pesticides appear only briefly on a laundry list of vague ideas. The plan says that the government should fund research on how farmers could use less of them, and that the government "will work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence” in the EPA’s existing pesticide-review process, which it called “robust.” Several studies have found neurological impacts associated with pesticides. UC Davis’s MIND Institute put out a study in 2014 that found autism risk was much higher among children whose mothers had lived near agricultural-pesticide areas while pregnant. A 2017 paper found that zip codes that conducted aerial spraying for mosquitoes—a pesticide—had comparatively higher rates of autism than zip codes that didn’t. Others have linked pesticides to a range of behavioral and cognitive impairment in children.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Pesticides banned years ago in the European Union are drifting through the skies and turning up in clouds above France, raising concerns about how long these toxins persist and how far they can travel, with potentially harmful global health impacts, according to a pathbreaking new study. The research ... is the first to detect dozens of agricultural chemicals—including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other substances—suspended in cloud water droplets. That means pesticides not only linger in the environment but also move through the atmosphere and fall back to Earth in rain or snow, sometimes at levels exceeding European safe drinking water limits. The study found that clouds can carry current-use pesticides, long-banned compounds, and “emerging contaminants“—industrial chemicals that either build up in the environment or form when older pesticides break down. Some even transform into new compounds in the atmosphere itself, beyond what regulators have known to consider. Researchers estimate that French skies alone may contain anywhere from a few tons to more than 100 tons of pesticides at any given time—most carried in from distant sources. Out of 446 possible chemicals screened—including pesticides, biocides (compounds that kill harmful organisms), additives, and transformation products (breakdown products of pesticides)—researchers found 32 different compounds in cloud water.
Note: Across the US, a powerful legislative push is underway to protect pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable for the harms caused by their products. Check out our latest Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate."
When it comes to pesticides, the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, Commission has a serious problem: The Commission’s newly released strategy for addressing childhood chronic disease is better for the pesticide industry than for people. The US currently uses over a billion pounds of pesticides annually on our crops, about one-third of which is chemicals that have been banned in other countries. Many have been linked to serious health problems from cancer to infertility to birth defects. Those pesticides contaminate our air, our water, and our bodies. One cancer-linked pesticide, glyphosate, is now found in 80% of adults and 87% of children. [The Commission] barely mentions organic farming, despite the fact that organic is the clearest pathway to transforming our food system into one that is healthy and nontoxic. The US Department of Agriculture organic seal prohibits more than 900 synthetic pesticides allowed in conventional agriculture. Just one week on an organic diet can reduce pesticide levels in our bodies up to 95%. Synthetic food dyes—a key issue for the MAHA movement—are all prohibited by the organic seal, along with hundreds of other food additives and drugs. The Commission’s strategy ignores organic. Instead, it leans into promoting industry-friendly “precision agriculture”—the use of AI, machine learning, and digital tools on farms to optimize inputs—which primarily benefits corporate giants like Bayer.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Despite the increasing rate of allergic diseases, both in industrialized and in developing countries, the Amish remain exceptionally — and bafflingly — resistant. Only 7 percent of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens in a skin prick test, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population. Even children from other traditional farming families, who still have lower rates of allergic disease than nonfarm children, are more allergic than the Amish. “Certain kinds of farming practices, particularly the very traditional ones, have this extraordinary protective effect in the sense that, in these communities, asthma and allergies are virtually unknown,” said Donata Vercelli, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine. “The studies that have been done in these farming populations are critical because they tell us that protection is an attainable goal.” During the first year or two of life, a baby’s immune system is rapidly developing and highly malleable by environmental stimuli, such as bacteria. Some experts believe that exposing young children to certain types of beneficial bacteria can engage and shape the growing immune system in a way that reduces the risk of allergic diseases later in life. Farm dust contains a hodgepodge of bacteria shed from livestock and animal feed that isn’t harmful enough to cause illness, but does effectively train the immune system to become less responsive to allergens later in life.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.
Between April and June of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the approval of four new pesticides that qualify as PFAS based on a definition that is commonly used around the world and supported by experts. “What we’re seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it’s genuinely frightening,” said Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who published a paper last year showing pesticides are increasingly fluorinated. Fluorination is the process that creates PFAS. “At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They’re firmly in the business of selling PFAS.” Because the EPA uses a different, narrower definition of PFAS, the agency does not categorize the new pesticides as falling into that category. Under the Trump administration, the [Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention] is being run by three industry insiders. Nancy Beck, formerly an executive at the American Chemistry Council, who previously pushed the EPA to weaken rules on PFAS in consumer products; Lynn Ann Dekleva, a former DuPont executive; and Kyle Kunkler, who has lobbied against pesticide regulations for the American Soybean Association. While the new pesticides are shorter-chain molecules compared to the other longer-chain molecules, they could still stick around in the environment for decades or even centuries.
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The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals – including us. Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence. Progressively higher prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos was associated with incrementally greater deviations in brain structure, function, and metabolism in children and teens, the researchers found, along with poorer measures of motor speed and motor programming. This supports previous research linking chlorpyrifos with impaired cognitive function and brain development, but these findings are the first evidence of widespread and long-lasting molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain. Subjects in this urban cohort were likely exposed to chlorpyrifos at home, since many were born before or shortly after the US Environmental Protection Agency banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001. The pesticide is still used in agriculture around the world. "Widespread exposures ... continue to place farm workers, pregnant women, and unborn children in harm's way," says senior author Virginia Rauh.
Note: Did you know that chlorpyrifos was originally developed by Nazis during World War II for use as a nerve gas? Read more about the history and politics of chlorpyrifos, and how U.S. regulators relied on falsified data to allow its use for years.
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