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A protester holds dead bees prior to the annual shareholders meeting of German chemicals and pharmaceuticals conglomerate Bayer AG on April 26, 2019 in Bonn, Germany. (Photo: Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Despite lower applied amounts of pesticides in U.S. agriculture, their toxicity to non-target species including honeybees more than doubled in a decade, according to a new study.
The findings by a team of researchers from Germany's University Koblenz-Landau were published Friday in the journal Science.
"We have taken a large body of pesticide use data from the U.S. and have expressed changes of amounts applied in agriculture over time as changes in total applied pesticide toxicity," explained lead author Ralf Schulz, professor for environmental sciences in Landau, in a statement.
"This provides a new view on the potential consequences that pesticide use in agriculture has on biodiversity and ecosystems," he said.
The researchers looked at changes in the use of 381 pesticides from 1992 to 2016 and analyzed toxicity impacts on eight non-target species groups, drawing data from the U.S. Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency. They used the EPA's threshold values to determine "total applied pesticide toxicity."
Lower amounts of pesticides have been applied, which brought decreased impacts on vertebrates, the scientists noted. But the same can't be said for for non-target species including aquatic invertebrates like crustaceans and pollinators like bees, who faced a doubling in toxicity between 2005 and 2015--a shift the authors put on increases in the use of pesticides called pyrethroids and neonicotinoids.
Also troubling is that an increase in herbicide toxicity has been on the rise as well, the scientists said, with the biggest impact seen on terrestrial plants. The study pointed to increased toxicity in the widely cultivated genetically modified crops in the U.S. of corn and soybean.
Schulz said the findings "challenge the claims of decreasing environmental impact of chemical pesticides in both conventional and GM crops and call for action to reduce the pesticide toxicity applied in agriculture worldwide."
The study was released amid continued concerns, both nationally and international, about wide-ranging adverse ecological impacts of neonicotinoids, or neonics, as they're sometimes called, especially amid a global decline in insect numbers that threatens humanity's future.
As Philip Donkersley, a senior research associate in entomology at Lancaster University, wrote this month at The Conversation:
Since their introduction in the late 1980s, robust scientific evidence has emerged to suggest these chemicals impair learning and memory, foraging behavior, and pollination in bees. The E.U. banned neonicotinoids in 2019, and while the U.K. government pledged to follow suit, it granted a special exemption for sugar beet farmers to use the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam in January 2021. Thankfully, it wasn't used.
Because honeybees don't spend much time on the ground, environmental risk assessments for neonicotinoids often neglect to consider how exposure to these chemicals in the soil affects all pollinators. But in a landmark study published in Nature, researchers have shown how neonicotinoids affect bees not just by accumulating in the plants pollinators visit, but in the ground where most wild bees build their nests.
Evidence suggests neonics' impacts go well beyond bees, including possibly to mammals like deer who inadvertently consume them.
As Civil Eats reported last month, the concerns are prompting continued demands for U.S. regulators to take action to curb or ban use of neonics.
Daniel Raichel, a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the outlet: "It's a bee issue for sure, but really, it's an ecosystem issue. It's an everything issue."
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Despite lower applied amounts of pesticides in U.S. agriculture, their toxicity to non-target species including honeybees more than doubled in a decade, according to a new study.
The findings by a team of researchers from Germany's University Koblenz-Landau were published Friday in the journal Science.
"We have taken a large body of pesticide use data from the U.S. and have expressed changes of amounts applied in agriculture over time as changes in total applied pesticide toxicity," explained lead author Ralf Schulz, professor for environmental sciences in Landau, in a statement.
"This provides a new view on the potential consequences that pesticide use in agriculture has on biodiversity and ecosystems," he said.
The researchers looked at changes in the use of 381 pesticides from 1992 to 2016 and analyzed toxicity impacts on eight non-target species groups, drawing data from the U.S. Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency. They used the EPA's threshold values to determine "total applied pesticide toxicity."
Lower amounts of pesticides have been applied, which brought decreased impacts on vertebrates, the scientists noted. But the same can't be said for for non-target species including aquatic invertebrates like crustaceans and pollinators like bees, who faced a doubling in toxicity between 2005 and 2015--a shift the authors put on increases in the use of pesticides called pyrethroids and neonicotinoids.
Also troubling is that an increase in herbicide toxicity has been on the rise as well, the scientists said, with the biggest impact seen on terrestrial plants. The study pointed to increased toxicity in the widely cultivated genetically modified crops in the U.S. of corn and soybean.
Schulz said the findings "challenge the claims of decreasing environmental impact of chemical pesticides in both conventional and GM crops and call for action to reduce the pesticide toxicity applied in agriculture worldwide."
The study was released amid continued concerns, both nationally and international, about wide-ranging adverse ecological impacts of neonicotinoids, or neonics, as they're sometimes called, especially amid a global decline in insect numbers that threatens humanity's future.
As Philip Donkersley, a senior research associate in entomology at Lancaster University, wrote this month at The Conversation:
Since their introduction in the late 1980s, robust scientific evidence has emerged to suggest these chemicals impair learning and memory, foraging behavior, and pollination in bees. The E.U. banned neonicotinoids in 2019, and while the U.K. government pledged to follow suit, it granted a special exemption for sugar beet farmers to use the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam in January 2021. Thankfully, it wasn't used.
Because honeybees don't spend much time on the ground, environmental risk assessments for neonicotinoids often neglect to consider how exposure to these chemicals in the soil affects all pollinators. But in a landmark study published in Nature, researchers have shown how neonicotinoids affect bees not just by accumulating in the plants pollinators visit, but in the ground where most wild bees build their nests.
Evidence suggests neonics' impacts go well beyond bees, including possibly to mammals like deer who inadvertently consume them.
As Civil Eats reported last month, the concerns are prompting continued demands for U.S. regulators to take action to curb or ban use of neonics.
Daniel Raichel, a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the outlet: "It's a bee issue for sure, but really, it's an ecosystem issue. It's an everything issue."
Despite lower applied amounts of pesticides in U.S. agriculture, their toxicity to non-target species including honeybees more than doubled in a decade, according to a new study.
The findings by a team of researchers from Germany's University Koblenz-Landau were published Friday in the journal Science.
"We have taken a large body of pesticide use data from the U.S. and have expressed changes of amounts applied in agriculture over time as changes in total applied pesticide toxicity," explained lead author Ralf Schulz, professor for environmental sciences in Landau, in a statement.
"This provides a new view on the potential consequences that pesticide use in agriculture has on biodiversity and ecosystems," he said.
The researchers looked at changes in the use of 381 pesticides from 1992 to 2016 and analyzed toxicity impacts on eight non-target species groups, drawing data from the U.S. Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency. They used the EPA's threshold values to determine "total applied pesticide toxicity."
Lower amounts of pesticides have been applied, which brought decreased impacts on vertebrates, the scientists noted. But the same can't be said for for non-target species including aquatic invertebrates like crustaceans and pollinators like bees, who faced a doubling in toxicity between 2005 and 2015--a shift the authors put on increases in the use of pesticides called pyrethroids and neonicotinoids.
Also troubling is that an increase in herbicide toxicity has been on the rise as well, the scientists said, with the biggest impact seen on terrestrial plants. The study pointed to increased toxicity in the widely cultivated genetically modified crops in the U.S. of corn and soybean.
Schulz said the findings "challenge the claims of decreasing environmental impact of chemical pesticides in both conventional and GM crops and call for action to reduce the pesticide toxicity applied in agriculture worldwide."
The study was released amid continued concerns, both nationally and international, about wide-ranging adverse ecological impacts of neonicotinoids, or neonics, as they're sometimes called, especially amid a global decline in insect numbers that threatens humanity's future.
As Philip Donkersley, a senior research associate in entomology at Lancaster University, wrote this month at The Conversation:
Since their introduction in the late 1980s, robust scientific evidence has emerged to suggest these chemicals impair learning and memory, foraging behavior, and pollination in bees. The E.U. banned neonicotinoids in 2019, and while the U.K. government pledged to follow suit, it granted a special exemption for sugar beet farmers to use the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam in January 2021. Thankfully, it wasn't used.
Because honeybees don't spend much time on the ground, environmental risk assessments for neonicotinoids often neglect to consider how exposure to these chemicals in the soil affects all pollinators. But in a landmark study published in Nature, researchers have shown how neonicotinoids affect bees not just by accumulating in the plants pollinators visit, but in the ground where most wild bees build their nests.
Evidence suggests neonics' impacts go well beyond bees, including possibly to mammals like deer who inadvertently consume them.
As Civil Eats reported last month, the concerns are prompting continued demands for U.S. regulators to take action to curb or ban use of neonics.
Daniel Raichel, a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the outlet: "It's a bee issue for sure, but really, it's an ecosystem issue. It's an everything issue."
A provision in the Republican budget law signed earlier this month "kneecaps the entire organization" and harms patients' ability to access care, said a judge.
Patients who use Medicaid to access health services at Planned Parenthood clinics will not be forced to find care elsewhere following a ruling Monday by a federal judge in Massachusetts.
Judge Indira Talwani in the state's federal District Court extended a temporary restraining order she had placed on the Trump administration earlier this month, barring it from imposing a one-year ban on states sending Medicaid payments to nonprofits that provide abortion care.
The ban, a provision in the domestic policy and budget bill President Donald Trump signed into law this month, applied only to groups that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funding in 2023—suggesting Planned Parenthood, a longtime foe of right-wing policymakers, is the "target of the law," said Talwani.
Federal law already prohibits public funds from being used to pay for abortion care, and Talwani found that the Republican Party and the Trump administration aimed to force clinics to "disaffiliate with Planned Parenthood Federation and stop providing abortion to continue participating in Medicaid programs."
"Imposing that choice kneecaps the entire organization," said Talwani.
Ripping Medicaid funds away from clinics would also harm patients, said the judge. About 11% of female Medicaid beneficiaries used services at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2021, according to the KFF, and the provision in the budget law made patients "likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable."
"In particular, restricting members' ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs," Talwani said.
Talwani had granted relief for certain Planned Parenthood member organizations last week with her temporary restraining order, but the injunction applies to all clinics. The Trump administration filed an appeal of the restraining order last week; Talwani's injunction will remain in effect barring action from the appeals court.
Dominique Lee, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said she was "encouraged" by Monday's ruling.
"At a time when reproductive healthcare access is under constant attack, this decision is a powerful reminder that patients, not politics, should guide healthcare," said Lee. "In Massachusetts and beyond, we will keep fighting to ensure everyone can turn to the provider they trust, no matter their insurance or ZIP code."
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called the ruling "a big win."
"As this case continues, patients across the country can still go to their trusted Planned Parenthood provider for care using Medicaid," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "We will keep fighting this cruel law so that everyone can get birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and other critical healthcare, no matter their insurance."
"We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it," said the CEO of an Alabama construction firm.
After months of national protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, even some of his supporters—including an Alabama man who runs day-to-day operations at construction sites—have come to the conclusion that workplace raids aimed at rounding up undocumented immigrants are the wrong way to go.
In an interview with Reuters published Monday, construction site superintendent Robby Robertson expressed frustration at the way the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policies have impacted his business.
He said that trouble at his site began in late May shortly after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a construction site in Tallahassee, Florida, which he said scared off nearly his entire workforce for several days afterward. Even though nearly two months have passed since then, he said a little more than half of his workforce has come back.
This is negatively impacting his current project, which he said was projected to be finished already but which has been slow to complete now that his initial 22-person roofing team has dwindled down to just a dozen workers. As if that weren't enough, Reuters wrote that Robertson's company "is facing potentially $84,000 in extra costs for the delays under a 'liquidated damages' clause of $4,000 for every day the project runs beyond" its deadline.
"I'm a Trump supporter," Robertson told Reuters. "But I just don't think the raids are the answer."
Robertson added that the raids aren't just intimidating undocumented immigrant workers but also Latino workers who are in the country legally but who don't want to get swept up in raids "because of their skin color."
"They are scared they look the part," Robertson explained.
Tim Harrison, the CEO of the construction firm that is building the project being overseen by Robertson, told Reuters that finding native-born American workers to do the kind of work he needs is extremely difficult, especially since Alabama already has a low unemployment rate that makes trying to attract workers to a physically demanding industry difficult.
"The contractor world is full of Republicans," explained Harrison in an interview with Reuters. "I'm not anti-ICE. We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it."
A report issued earlier this month by the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) projected that the construction industry could take a severe hit from Trump's mass deportation plan given how many undocumented immigrants work in that industry.
"Employment in the construction sector will drop sharply: U.S.-born construction employment will fall by 861,000, and immigrant employment will fall by 1.4 million," wrote EPI senior economist Ben Zipperer, who added that the Trump administration's plans risked "squandering the full employment... inherited from the Biden administration and also causing immense pain to the millions of U.S.-born and immigrant workers who may lose their jobs."
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips health care away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
The progressive advocacy group Unrig Our Economy launched a new $2 million advertising campaign Monday against four Texas Republicans who voted for the massive Medicaid cuts in this month's GOP megabill.
At the behest of President Donald Trump, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is mounting an unusual mid-decade effort to redraw Texas' congressional map to keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives come 2026.
The plan is expected to net the GOP five seats. But the flipside is that some seats that were once GOP locks may become more vulnerable to Democratic challengers.
Those include the ones held by Republican Reps. Lance Gooden (5), Monica De La Cruz (15), Beth Van Duyne (24), and Dan Crenshaw (2)—all of whom voted for the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."
Put together, these four congresspeople alone represent around 450,000 Medicaid recipients, according to data from KFF.
The law remains dismally unpopular, with the majority of Americans believing that it benefits the rich, while providing little to ordinary Americans. According to a Navigator survey conducted last week, 7 in 10 Americans said they were concerned about its cuts to Medicaid.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that 10 million Americans will lose health insurance as a result of the law's Medicaid cuts.
Around 200,000 of them are in Texas according to KFF. In total, up to 1.7 million people in the state may lose their insurance as a result of other subsidies that were also cut.
Those are the people Unrig Our Economy hopes to reach with its new ad blitz.
One ad hits Crenshaw—whose district has nearly 92,000 Medicaid recipients—for making false promises to protect the program.
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
It shows a video of the congressman from May 14 assuring Texans: "You have nothing to worry about. Your Medicaid is not going anywhere," less than two months before voting for "the largest Medicaid and healthcare cuts in history."
Another singles out De La Cruz—who represents over 181,000 Medicaid recipients—for her vote for the bill after warning that the cuts "would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open."
Among hundreds at risk across the country, 15 rural hospitals in Texas are in danger of closing because of the cuts, according to a study by the health services research arm of the University of North Carolina.
The ads targeting Gooden and Van Duyne, meanwhile, draw more attention to the effects of their cuts on Texan families: "Medicaid covers a third of all children, half of all pregnant women, the elderly in long-term care, and the disabled."
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
Gooden's district contains more than 120,000 Medicaid recipients—over half of whom are children. In Van Duyne's district, children make up close to two-thirds of the more than 57,000 enrollees.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bill cuts more than $930 billion in total from Medicaid over the next ten years. Over that same ten-year period, the wealthiest 1% of Americans will receive over $1 trillion worth of tax breaks.
All the ads hammer home the fact that these devastating cuts were passed "to fund tax breaks for billionaires."
Unrig Our Economy's ad blitz is the first salvo of a $20-million effort by the House Majority PAC—the largest national PAC supporting Democrats—to beat back the effects of the Republican gerrymandering effort.
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips healthcare away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
Unrig Our Economy has launched similar ads against vulnerable Republicans across the country, such as first-term Rep. Rob Bresnahan, whose northeast Pennsylvania constituency is made up of more than one-fourth Medicaid recipients.
"These ads," Tal said, "are just the latest in our nationwide campaign to show the horrible impacts of this law, which benefits the superwealthy at working families' expense."