Just a little over a week after an Environmental Working Group (EWG) report showed that potentially unsafe levels of glyphosate had been discovered in oat products, including Cheerios, General Mills (the maker of Cheerios) has been slapped with a lawsuit. The company has decided to remove the phrase “Made with 100% Natural Whole Grain Oats” from the labels of its Nature Valley granola bars.
Each year in the United States, antibiotic side effects send about 70,000 children to emergency rooms, according to a report published in August.
For the study, supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), researchers used nationwide estimates for outpatient antibiotic prescriptions and data from a nationally-representative sample of ER visits to gain a better understanding of antibiotic use in people under 19.
Residents gathered in Stuart, Florida, in August to protest the use of Roundup in their community and demand a ban on the herbicide. [1]
In addition to concerns that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, causes cancer, a much more immediate issue brought about the rally: fears that the chemical contributes to toxic algae blooms in Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie River.
Protestor Jackie Trancynger said:
Consumer Reports has some bad news for parents who only feed their babies organic food. In terms of arsenic, cadmium, and lead levels, organic baby foods are no better than traditional products when it comes to heavy metal contamination.
The authors of the report note that babies are ingesting fewer pesticides with organic food consumption. That, along with the gentler effects organic food has on the environment, still shows that organic is better than conventional. However, “organic” does not mean free of heavy metals.
The 2 largest independent seed sellers in the United States, Beck’s Hybrids and Stine Seed, are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban farmers from spraying dicamba herbicide during upcoming summers.
Spraying would be limited to the springtime, before crops are planted, preventing farmers from using the weedkiller on Monsanto-made soybeans genetically engineered to withstand dicamba.
A chemical touted as a safer replacement for bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics) has similar harmful effects, researchers in the U.K. have discovered.
Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides intended to protect crops from pests by blocking receptors in the insects’ brains, paralyzing and killing them. Even small doses of neonics can cause bees to struggle with navigation, hunting for food, reproduction, and their ability to form new colonies.
A report published August 15 by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) shows how some oat products, including oat cereals, oatmeals, and granola and snack bars, contain unsafe levels of glyphosate – a chemical in the controversial weedkiller Roundup.
Nearly 3/4 of the oat products tested by the EWG contained higher levels of glyphosate than what the group’s scientists have deemed “protective of children’s health,” the report reveals.
A jury has awarded $250 million in punitive damages and nearly $40 million in compensatory damages to a former school groundskeeper who alleged in a lawsuit that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, caused him cancer. [1]
The plaintiff, DeWayne Johnson, was seeking $400 million in punitive damages and $39 million in compensatory damages from the biotech company, according to his attorney.
A federal appeals court ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on August 10 to ban the sale of a commonly-used pesticide that has been linked to learning disabilities in children. [1]
Europe’s highest court ruled July 25 that crops edited with CRISPR technology should face the same tough scrutiny as conventional genetically modified (GM) organisms. [1]
The decision, handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), is a blow to many scientists and other proponents of gene-editing who had hoped that gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9 would be exempted from existing European law limiting the planting and sale of GM crops.
