Since prenatal pesticide exposure can lower IQ, I'm sure politicians of both stripes will soon be shouting, "spray, baby, spray!"

Everything makes sense. All the bad connects into a whole and all the good connects into a separate whole, and there are no cross- connections. For example, pesticide isn't really a benefit, because we don't need higher crop yields. So pesticide use is something we don't need, for the wrong reasons, with dangerous side-effects, perpetrated through lies, and displacing far more beneficial ways. So there are five different problems all tangled together into one big ugly sphere of evil. You can then describe the far more beneficial way of producing food as a nice neat weave of a similar number of really good things. Like so: Organic farming is something we need for our health, is perfectly reasonable, with no dangerous side-effects, resonates with all truths, and displaces bad ideas that are dangerous to us. So there is a very clear distinction between right and wrong in the pesticide scenario and in all scenarios. This truth is terrorizing to liberals, because it wipes out their whole racket, which is to enslave the people, through invasion of their minds and hearts with trojan horses, pretty on the outside, with highly destructive contents. Liberalism is all about confusion and slavery. But the people's way is all about universal enlightenment, solidarity, equity and justice. Obviously the people don't need the elites, or their evil philosophies.

"Last year, three separate studies arrived at similar conclusions: Prenatal pesticide exposure is linked to diminished IQ." Now I understand why many Americans are so _____________ .

Republican Greg walden of Oregon wants the EPA to back off in the Columbia gorge so the orchardists can use more dangerous pesticides for more profit for wealthy orchardists. Everything in the gorge drains into the Columbia river, good luck salmon. Crop dusting homes is just a fact of life in the gorge.

I don't see why not? Journalists pretend to be experts in everything. ( snark )

If chemical agro is on the defensive, it means that organic is on the up and up

emendation:
"Truth: The U.S. has never banned or restricted the use of any organic pest control chemical ..."
The article is in error, Rotenone was removed from the list of approved substances for organic produce in 2005. It has since been reapproved, though not without some controversy. Linkage to Parkinson's Disease type symptoms has been indicated through many studies over the years. Rodale's Chemical-Free Yard and Garden notes; "Although there are no records of human poisonings, rotenone may cause skin irritations, facial numbness, and respiratory problems in humans alleergic to the compound. Rotenone is very toxic to fish, birds, and pigs."

For many years, indeed ever since the end of WW II when the petrochemical industries really revved up the development and marketing of pesticides and herbicides, the state agricultural schools and their usual statewide network of agriculture extension agents, have been hand maidens and errand boys for the pesticide/herbicide manufacturers. They "lubricate" the process of getting the ag schools to recommend and encourage the use of chemical pesticides by providing "research grants" to ag school faculty in horticulture, entomology, and any and all ag related fields. This "lubrication" explains in part the fierce and ugly personal attack made on Rachel Carson back in the 1960s when her epoch marking book Silent Spring was published. Many ag schools offically reviewed/condemned the book, something they almost never do with any other book. But that is how the game is played between chemicalized ag and the state ag schools, which have preached and taught petrochemical agriculture as doctrine for decades now.

This is so sad. Anyone with even a hint of sensitivity who understands the dynamics of how the earth works would be horrified by this article. And I don't mean horrified by the author and his concern, rather, by the mass applications of pesticides and fungicides applied to the very soil that gives us life.

A long time ago I heard the analogy that what we do to our bodies we also do to the earth. That's not hard to see for anyone paying attention; look at all the cosmetic surgeries and chemically infused alterations taking place targeting our bodies and skin? The cosmetics of everything has been contaminated. Look at the statistics pointing to how medicated we've become as a nation? More and more the use of Prozac and other mood altering drugs are becoming the norm. And worse, other countries are assimilating our neuroses. The idea of perfection no longer belongs to just human vanity; we've transferred our addiction to "perfect" to our foods, our landscapes, even our pets. And all of this maintained through artificial and synthetic chemicals pushed by our millionaire pharmaceutical and agricultural companies. They are the antithesis of people who care about our or the earth's "well-being".

Siouxrose is right; all one has to do is have a blood test to see what we're ingesting via our water supplies, our food supplies, even through the sacred and primal force known as our breath. The air is filled with rotten chemicals and pollutions. We can't even breathe without jeapordizing our life spans anymore.

There's an article in the NY Times called, A Taos Field Evokes the Extraordinary. It's written by Henry Shukman and describes a plot of land in New Mexico that has been cared for, tended and "loved" for over 1,000 years. It can damn well be done and done successfully. The Chinese, at one time, were also some of the most capable people at tending the earth and keeping it fertile and healthy for thousands of years without the use of chemicals. At least Europe is still ahead of the game as far as banning genetically modified foods and prohibiting the use of other pesticides and fungicides responsible for killing the honeybees.

It is hard to keep one's hopes alive not only for humanity but for all the animals, plants and sea creatures whose lives are directly affected by egregious abuses like these. A very sad time to be alive bearing witness to all this destruction.

Once a professional pesticide applicator's brain circuits and immuno serum cells have been inevitably zapped enough, which usually doesn't take long via unavoidably inhaled aerosol blow backs and/or underclothing exposures, it's typical that what's then quickly lost is their frontal lobe-mediated ability to doubt, use caution, or even be abstractly be concerned about the toxic effects of these paycheck brews on themselves, let alone their customers.

The consumer/environment-dangerous toxicity of almost all pesticides doesn't usually come from the EPA-registered 'active ingredient' listed on the label,' but from a synergy between the registered active ingredient and the often far more toxic but unregistered, so-called 'inactive ingredients.'

If for example Dow, Inc. wants to keep marketing a now-proven-to-be-extremely-biolethal-yet-still-merely-titularly-restricted neurotoxin/carcinogen, like the hellspun chemical compound, Chlorpyrifos, for unrestricted/off-the-shelf consumer use, Dow only needs to change the arrangement of wording on the label, and call deadly Chloropyrifos (which is now scheduled to be totally banned within the EU marketplace) an 'inactive ingredient,' while calling something like '...all-natural marigold-derived alcohol-distillates' as said product's 'active ingredient source' --to legally escape all meaningful toxicological review or special registration by EPA.

If you doubt this single example of how EPA typically assesses many known human toxins in the consumer market , Google-search: EPA-Consumer-Toxin Evaluation Protocols, or a similar search term.

As for what the average & presumably reasonably sane US citizen can do about this kind of corporate domination of our government -- --- I really don't know what to say.. I suupose I'd say for now: re-consider Revolution. at minimum.

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Most folk seem to care more about their electronics than their organics. We have become the weeds in the garden.