Pesticides

This July Fourth weekend, be responsible and respect local public health ordinances and social distancing guidelines. Whether you’re planning to stay at home to grill in your backyard, or heading to your nearest beach or lake for time outdoors, it’s more important than ever to make your health and safety a priority.

EWG submits comments opposing the EPA’s decisions to allow continued use of five neonicotinoid insecticides.

Nearly 70 percent of the fresh produce sold in the U.S. contains residues of potentially harmful chemical pesticides, according to the Environmental Working Group’s 2020 Dirty Dozen™. Yet the dirtiest produce commodity is not a fresh fruit or vegetable but a dried one – raisins.

The landmark Food Quality Protection Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to protect children’s health by applying an extra margin of safety to legal limits for pesticides in food. But an investigation by EWG, published this week in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, found that the EPA has failed to add the mandated children’s health safety factor to the allowable limits for almost 90 percent of the most common pesticides.

Kellogg's will take steps to phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate to dry oats and wheat before harvest, eliminating use of the potentially harmful chemical in the main ingredients of many of the company’s breakfast cereals and other foods.

The Environmental Working Group submits comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on the human health risk assessment for the fungicide tebuconazole, urging the EPA to use a full tenfold children’s health safety factor for this chemical.

The Trump administration today proposed reapproving the pesticide atrazine, an endocrine-disrupting hormone that castrates frogs and is linked to birth defects and cancer in people. It has been banned or is being phased out in more than 35 countries.

The European Union today confirmed it will ban the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on food crops early next year, citing the risk of brain damage to children – evidence the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignored in scuttling a proposed ban on the chemical.

October was Children’s Environmental Health Month in California, a designation made by state legislators to raise awareness about the importance of cleaner air and water, safer food and healthier products for kids. But lawmakers and state officials didn’t just observe the occasion: They also took important actions to protect children’s health from hazardous chemicals.