FDA to Test Safety of Roundup Residue
Last year, the World Health Organization announced that glyphosate–the world’s most widely used herbicide also known as Roundup–was a “probable human carcinogen.” Shortly thereafter, French officials banned sales of Roundup nationwide as Monsanto, Roundup’s manufacturer, prepared to stand trial for “crimes against humanity and the environment” in The Hague. The previous year, our own Government Accountability Office called out the Food and Drug Administration for its failure to test Roundup through the pesticide monitoring program because it was too “costly.” Then, studies released by private consumer groups like Moms Across America found that 70% of our water contained Roundup, and that our urine showed levels 10 times greater than that of Europeans. So really, what else could the FDA do?
EPA Scientists Fact Check Fracking Study
Did the EPA misread its own fracking study? If you didn’t already mistrust the Environmental Protection Agency, how’s this for a story: In June, the EPA released a report on a fracking study that found no “wide, systematic impacts on drinking water.” Yet this week, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board came out swinging against the fracking study findings.
France Bans Glyphosate aka RoundUp
It’s great to see a country take action on toxic chemicals–even if it’s not our own. After the United Nations called it a “probable human carcinogen,” France banned the sale of glyphosate–aka Roundup–at garden centers nationwide. The most widely sprayed herbicide on the planet, glyphosate is used in tandem with genetically modified “Roundup Ready” crops like corn and soybeans. According to Newsweek, as of 2012 Roundup was also the herbicide of choice for New York City parks. But the tide may be turning in America, too.
.@LCVoters vs. @Waterkeeper on Clean Water Rule
When I read the League of Conservation Voters’ perspective on the new Clean Water Rule that restores “pollution protections to the small streams and wetlands that contribute to the drinking water of 1 in 3 Americans,” I was thrilled. But then I read what the Waterkeeper Alliance had to say about it, and I wasn’t so sure.
