David Bernhardt, a former oil and gas lobbyist, speaks before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at his March 28 confirmation hearing to head the Interior Department. By Elena Conis Elena Conis, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society, is the author of"Vaccine Nation." She is at work on a book on the pesticide DDT.
World War II led to an explosion of synthetic pesticides that were cheap, easily manufactured and highly profitable for chemical companies, which raked in $40 million in pesticide sales per year at the war’s start and $260 million over a decade later. Some of the new pesticides were astonishingly powerful: A single drop of Tepp could kill a mouse instantly. Others seemed incredibly safe.
But the law elided a crucial question: What, exactly, constituted a poison? It depended on what kind of scientist you asked. With few market restrictions in place, the companies ramped up production. Between 1945 and 1950, U.S. manufacturers tripled the amount of pesticides produced. By 1952, the USDA had more than 20,000 new pesticide products to keep track of. All the while, cancer rates climbed and pesticides came under suspicion.
This should have made a big difference. But by the end of the 1970s, the EPA’s pesticide office was drowning in a backlog of registration requests and, unable to keep up, chose to register pesticides whose applications included incomplete, unreliable and obsolete data. Conditional registration is not the only reason glyphosate has remained on the market. EPA scientists classified it as a carcinogen back in 1985 but reversed course after six years of correspondence with Monsanto executives. In the decades that followed, the company commissioned its own science from its preferred scientists and asked federal regulators to base decisions on that science.
Vinegar with a touch of salt kills weeds without killing bees and butterflies. Not just pretty creatures, but vital to my/our existence.
oh follow the money, it's always all about money ! it's time to end lobbyists who bribe elected officials to do their bidding...America is no democracy it is an oligarchy !
Money talks and bullshit walks. Sad!
Both sides! See, they both have shortcomings. 😜
Solution: OpenTheDebates I'm a large-L LPNational guy. I have controversial ideas such as separating school & state. But OpenTheDebates is literally Civics 101. And no, 'professional' polling can't be trusted as a gatekeeper, as we've repeatedly seen.
Nice both sides. Only one party has put in AAP a administrators that are hell bent to destroy the agency. Only 1 party does not believe in climate change. If you can't come up with a better article with facts than this then you should hang it up.
One word: Lobbyist Our politicians are bought and paid for.
Because germanic Bayer owns the poison and the medicine. Without pesticides, Bayer and similars would lose money. We got screwed.. seriously.