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Patrick Davis, (202) 222-0744, pdavis@foe.org
A new peer-reviewed study shows an explosion in the toxicity of U.S. agriculture for insects over the past 25 years since neonicotinoid pesticides were introduced. The study found that U.S. agriculture is 48 times more toxic to insect life, and that neonicotinoids account for 92 percent of the increase in toxicity.
"It is alarming that U.S. agriculture has become so much more toxic to insect life in the past two decades," said Kendra Klein, Ph.D., study co-author and senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth. "We need to phase out neonicotinoid pesticides to protect bees and other insects that are critical to biodiversity and the farms that feed us."
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, An assessment of acute insecticide toxicity loading of chemical pesticides used on agricultural land in the United States, is the first study to quantify how hazardous our agricultural lands have become for insect life by providing a way to compare changes in the toxicity of U.S. agriculture year-to-year.
The increase in toxic load measured by the study is consistent with recent reports of dramatic declines in beneficial insects and bird populations. The study comes on the heels of the first meta-analysis of global insect decline, which found that 40 percent of insect species face extinction in coming decades, leading the authors to warn of "catastrophic ecosystem collapse" if we don't change the way we farm.
The new study found that the persistence of neonicotinoids creates a cumulative toxic burden in the environment that is much higher than that experienced by insects 25 or more years ago. This is because neonicotinoids are considerably more toxic to insects and far more persistent in the environment than other commonly used insecticides. While others break down within hours or days, neonicotinoids can be effective at killing insects for months to years after application.
"Congress must pass the Saving America's Pollinators Act to ban neonicotinoids," said Klein. "In addition, we need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it."
A growing body of evidence points to neonicotinoids as a factor in insect declines, along with climate change and habitat destruction, leading some scientists to warn of an "insect apocalypse." Insects make up the basis of the food webs that sustain life on Earth and play a critical role in the agricultural production of crops that feed us all. Pollinators, like bees, are responsible for one in three bites of food we eat.
The new study shows a dramatic increase in the toxic load of U.S. agriculture beginning in the mid-2000s. This is when neonicotinoids first started being used to coat the seeds of commodity crops like corn and soy. The findings show that corn and soy have contributed more than any other crops to the increase in toxic load. Research, including an Environmental Protection Agency assessment, shows that neonicotinoid seed coatings provide little to no economic benefits to farmers but come at a high cost to the environment.
The study found that the three neonicotinoids that contributed most to the increasing toxic load are imidacloprid and clothianidin, manufactured by Bayer, and thiamethoxam, a product of Syngenta-ChemChina.
Based on the study analysis, the authors assert that existing regulations for the registration of pesticides in the U.S. are not adequate to prevent the introduction of chemicals that can cause catastrophic harm in the environment. The study presents a new method that could be used by the Environmental Protection Agency to assess future potential risks to biodiversity before introducing new pesticides into the environment.
DiBartolomeis, M., Kegley, S., Mineau, P., Radford, R., and Klein, K. 2019. An assessment of acute insecticide toxicity loading (AITL) of chemical pesticides used on agricultural land in the United States. PLOS ONE. 14(8): e0220029.
For more information go to https://foe.org/toxic-acres/
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400"I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel," said the award-winning actress.
Hanna Einbinder took home the Emmy for best supporting actress in a comedy on Sunday night. She ended her acceptance speech with a deeply serious message, denouncing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown across the US and calling for the liberation of the Palestinian people, both in the Occupied West Bank and those suffering daily under Israel's genocidal attack in Gaza.
Einbinder, who plays the character of Ava Daniels in the hit shows Hacks, accepted the award in typical fashion, but before leaving the microphone, "I just want to say: Go Birds, fuck ICE, and free Palestine."
The birds refer to the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, and ICE is the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since Trump took office in January, ICE has been conducting increasing numbers of high-profile raids and community sweeps in communities across the country.
"Go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine."
Hannah Einbinder turned her Emmy win for best supporting actress in a comedy into a platform for activism, wearing a red Artists4Ceasefire pin and joining fellow actors on the red carpet calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
In a… pic.twitter.com/PotaFIvpS1
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 15, 2025
Einbinder, who is Jewish and wore a red Artists4Ceasefire button on her dress throughout the glitzy award show, was asked about her comments regarding Palestine backstage.
"I thought it was important to talk about Palestine,” Einbinder explained, “because it’s an issue that’s very dear to my heart. I have friends in Gaza who are working as frontline workers, as doctors, right now in the north of Gaza, to provide care for pregnant women and for school children to create schools in the refugee camps. And it’s an issue that’s really close to my heart for many reasons.”
"I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel," she added, "because our religion and our culture are such an important and long-standing institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state.”
This is not the first time Einbinder has spoken out on behalf of Gaza and Palestinian rights. Earlier this year, accepting an award from the Human Rights Campaign, she said, "As a queer person, as a Jewish person, and as an American, I am horrified by the Israeli government's massacre of well over 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza."
While accepting an award from the Human Rights Campaign, actor Hannah Einbinder used her speech to strongly condemn the genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/oRWXpTuUO3
— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 30, 2025
"I am ashamed and infuriated," she continued, "that this mass murder is funded by our American tax dollars. It should not be controversial to say that we should all be against murdering civilians. I know that calling for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages begs for the safety, security, and preservation of life of both Palestinians and Israelis."
"I know that my call for a liberated Palestine," Einbinder said, comes from a desire for mutual safety of all people living in the region and I know that my condemnation of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is not despite what I learned in Hebrew school, but because of it."
"Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder," said one healthcare advocate.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade is facing calls to resign after suggesting earlier this week that the state should execute homeless people who decline help during a live broadcast.
Kilmeade made the comments during a Wednesday episode of Fox & Friends, during which the panel discussed the recent shocking video of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a mentally ill homeless man, which has ignited a flurry of often racist vitriol on the right toward Black Americans and homeless people.
Another of the hosts, Lawrence Jones, claimed that the government has "given billions of dollars to mental health, to the homeless population," but that "a lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary."
Jones continued: "You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you, or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now."
Kilmeade then interjected with his suggestion that instead of jail, they should be given "involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill 'em."
As one X user noted, Jones and co-host Ainsley Earhardt, "[didn't] even blink an eye" in response to this call for mass murder.
While the claim that homeless people often "refuse" abundant services is a common talking point, it is not borne out by data. According to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2023, more than three-fourths of direct service providers reported that they were forced to turn away homeless people due to staffing shortages.
But even in cases where homeless people are offered services—such as temporary shelter beds—and decline them, they often do so not because they prefer to be on the street but because shelters are often overcrowded and poorly maintained, or have restrictive rules that require them to separate from their families, pets, and belongings.
When homeless people are offered permanent shelter, they are comparatively much more likely to accept it. According to one 2020 study from UC San Francisco, 86% of "high-risk" chronically homeless people given access to permanent supportive housing were successfully housed and remained in their housing for several years, a much higher rate than those given temporary solutions.
But as Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, "Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder."
Kilmeade's calls to execute the homeless were met with horror and disgust from advocates. Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, called for Kilmeade to resign.
“It is dangerous. It shows a lack of human compassion and it is really the worst possible time for that kind of language to be expressed,” Whitehead told the Irish Star.
Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC, noted in The Independent that Kilmeade's comments come as the Trump administration "is proposing government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums" to house the homeless.
In August, the president launched a crackdown against homeless encampments in DC that advocates say has left hundreds of people with nowhere to go and dependent on overwhelmed city services. Meanwhile, his administration and recent Republican legislation have introduced massive cuts to housing funding for homeless people across the United States.
“America’s homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. These Fox hosts are calling for mass murder—it’s sick.”
Kilmeade apologized for his comment on Sunday, describing it as an "extremely callous remark.” There is no indication from Fox News that Kilmeade will be subject to any disciplinary action over his remarks, which critics found noteworthy given the punishments other figures in mainstream media have faced for saying far less.
Photojournalist Zach D. Roberts pointed out that earlier this week, MSNBC fired contributor Matthew Dowd for criticizing the "hateful" and "divisive" rhetoric of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk shortly after he'd been assassinated.
"On MSNBC, a contributor got fired for lightly criticizing Charlie Kirk," Roberts said. "Meanwhile, on Fox News, Brian Kilmeade calls for the murder of homeless people for being homeless. Nothing has happened to him. I don't know if there can be a more obvious divide in politics."
"They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people," said one doctor Kennedy fired from the panel.
Health officials working under Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may seek to restrict access to the Covid-19 vaccine for people under 75 years old.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the officials plan to justify the move by citing reports from an unverified database to make the claim that the shots caused the deaths of 25 children.
The reports come from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a federal database that allows the public to submit reports of negative reactions to vaccines. As the Post explains, VAERS "contains unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences with vaccines submitted by anyone, including patients, doctors, pharmacists, or even someone who sees a report on social media."
As one publicly maintained database of "Batshit Crazy VAERS Adverse Events" found, users have reported deaths and injuries resulting from gunshot wounds, malaria, drug overdoses, and countless other unrelated causes as possible cases of vaccine injury.
As Beth Mole wrote for ARS Technica, "The reports are completely unverified upon submission, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff follow up on serious reports to try to substantiate claims and assess if they were actually caused by a vaccine. They rarely are."
Nevertheless, HHS officials plan to use these VAERS reports on pediatric deaths in a presentation to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) next week as the panel considers revising federal vaccine guidelines.
One person familiar with the matter told the Post that HHS officials attempted to interview some of the families who claimed their child died from the vaccine, but it is unclear how many were consulted and what other information was used to verify their claims.
In June, Kennedy purged that panel of many top vaccine experts, replacing them with prominent anti-vaccine activists, after previously promising during his confirmation hearing to keep the panel intact.
The Food and Drug Administration under Kennedy has already limited access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Last month, it authorized the vaccines only for those 65 and over who are known to be at risk of serious illness from Covid-19 infections.
While the vaccine is technically available to others, the updated guidance has created significant barriers, such as the potential requirement of a doctor's prescription and out-of-pocket payment, making it much harder for many to receive the shot.
The Post reports that ACIP is considering restricting access to the vaccination further, by recommending it only for those older than 75. It is weighing multiple options for those 74 and younger—potentially requiring them to consult with their doctor first, or not recommending it at all unless they have a preexisting condition.
Prior to the wide availability of Covid-19 vaccinations beginning in 2021, the illness killed over 350,000 people in the US. And while the danger of death from Covid-19 does increase with age, CDC data shows that from 2020 to 2023, nearly 47% of the over 1.1 million deaths from the illness occurred in people under 75.
According to the World Health Organization, the US reported 822 deaths from Covid over a 28-day period in July and August this year, vastly more deaths than anywhere else in the world. CDC data reported to ACIP in June shows that Covid deaths were lower among all age groups—including children—who received the mRNA vaccine.
Nicole Brewer, one of the vaccine advisers eliminated by Kennedy, lamented that Kennedy and his new appointees are ignoring the dangers of Covid-19 while amplifying the comparatively much lower risk posed by vaccines.
"They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people," she told the Post. “The U.S. government is now in the business of vaccine misinformation.”
ACIP is also reportedly mulling the rollback of guidelines for other childhood vaccines for deadly diseases like measles, Hepatitis B, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
While ACIP's guidelines are not legally binding, the Post writes that its meeting next week "is critical because the recommendations determine whether insurers must pay for the immunizations, pharmacies can administer them, and doctors are willing to offer them."
"If you haven't gotten your updated Covid vaccine by now, book an appointment fast before next week's ACIP meeting," warned Dr. David Gorski, the editor of the blog Science-Based Medicine. "After that, you might not be able to get one."