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Pesticides
Millions of people rely on EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce to reduce their exposure to toxic synthetic pesticides used on fruits and vegetables. The alternative is buy organic.
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The Latest on Pesticides
We talk a lot about pesticides around these parts, and with good reason. Marc Lame talks a lot about pesticides, too. He's an entomologist and professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and he's on a mission to stop the excessive and unnecessary use of pesticides in America's schools.
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Today's villain is brought to you by the letter C, for Coverup: Back in early June we posted a story about a couple of Jersey City journalists who were arrested for crossing police barricades to collect samples of contaminated soil on school grounds. That story revolved around a Paramus, NJ middle school and piles of soil contaminated with high levels of pesticides.
Read MoreJIM ANNESS / THE RECORD A Paramus police officer handcuffing reporter Michael Gartland on Saturday
Read MoreEarlier this week Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin announced his intention to offer a resolution to mark the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson . Sen. Tom Coburn from Oklahoma decided that the Senate was the wrong place to honor the woman who launched the national debate that would eventually ban certain dangerous pesticides.
Read MoreTomorrow night, NBC will air “Loophole,” an episode on the crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which focuses on the controversial EPA rule allowing intentional dosing of people with pesticides.
Read MoreThe Environment Agency (UK) has published its Top 100 eco-heroes as voted by their peers ("peers" is code for "the staff of The Environment Agency"). Many of the obvious trailblazers have made the cut. Not surprisingly, Rachel Carson takes first place for bringing awareness to the effects of indiscriminate use of pesticides.
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Got cockroaches? Grist's Umbra gives us a few eco-friendly tips for getting rid of the unwanted guests. I'm definitely bookmarking this one as I have little idea what crawlers may await me in the historic rowhouse I just moved into, and my roommate who works for Beyond Pesticides would exterminate me if I let the landlord spray the nasty stuff.
Read MoreFrom The Guradian (UK): Consumers are being routinely exposed to unsafe levels of pesticide residues in their food which are nevertheless still within legal limits, campaigners warn today.
Read MoreAt least one pesticide was found in each of 168 daycare centers tested in a recent study by EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory. While noting that concentrations found were generally low, researcher Nicolle Tulve did stress that there no health advisories or national standards currently exist for such exposure levels.
Read MoreEnvironmental Science and Technology reports on a study finding high levels of pesticides in the children of immigrant farmworkers. Of the farmworkers studied, researchers found that "40% of the mothers and 30% of the fathers had not received training in pesticide handling, a violation of U.S. EPA regulations."
Read MoreOfficials in Massachusetts have begun aerial fumigation of the Southestern part of the state with the pesticide Anvil. The enemy: mosquitos capable of carrying Eastern equine encephalitis, of which two cases have been reported in Massachusetts this year. [Boston Globe]
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The body burden ball just keeps getting bigger, this time with test results from 10 Washington residents, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition of Washington State tested for the usual suspects -- fire retardants, pesticides, mercury, lead and phthalates -- among others, and found five to seven of eight classes of chemicals in each participant.
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No point rewriting Marian Burros' lead from Wednesday's New York Times: "The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill that w
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A new EPA study fed 23 Seattle children an all-organic diet for a week and saw the pesticide levels in their blood drop to virtually zero. As soon as the kids started back on their conventional diets, their pesticide levels rocketed back up.
Read MoreTomato giant Ag-Mart couldn't be in bigger trouble in North Carolina for alleged pesticide violations that may have caused birth defects in three field workers' children, but the state ag department says it's powerless to ensure that the company shapes up.
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AP reports that some Washington state farmers may have faked results in tests of a federal conservation program designed to reduce
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This New York Times article brings the tips on what to watch out for when buying organic milk. For example, while organic means that the cows weren't fed synthetic growth hormones, antibiotics or pesticides, the requirement that the animals have "access to pasture" is a standard that varies widely across companies.
Read MoreThe U.S. Forest Service has fired a 40-year employee after he filed a whistleblower complaint related to misuse of pesticides across several forests in Arizona and New Mexico. He said he was fired him because the Forest Service doesn't want controls over its pesticide use in public areas.
Read MoreAg-Mart Produce, the giant Florida tomato grower, is eliminating the use of some pesticides linked to birth defects following a lawsuit involving three seriously deformed babies born to field workers.
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