Conventional Produce is Safe to Eat, and Isn't Covered in Harmful Pesticides

The USDA pesticide residue report demonstrates the safety of conventionally grown produce, contrary to claims of anti-science activists like the Environmental Working Group

By Andrea Love of The American Council on Science and Health. Excerpts:

"The National Organic Program (NOP), established by the passage of the US Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA), is a program managed by the USDA that sets standards for what qualifies as organic farming, the rules and criteria for what farming and growing practices qualify a farm for the USDA Organic certification. That’s it. It does not mean practices are better, safer, more eco-friendly, more nutritious, or pesticide-free. (There is an extensive list of permitted pesticides and fertilizers for organic farming.)"

"The NOP centers around personal beliefs and perceived values, often focusing on “natural” substances perceived by consumers as “clean,” which mislead consumers using clever marketing ploys. As a result, people believe that organic is superior, uses fewer chemicals, leads to improved products, and is safer.

Unfortunately, that isn’t true. Many modern synthetic pesticides have taken natural chemicals (that are used as organic pesticides) and improved upon them using science to reduce environmental harm, off-target effects, and overall safety."

"pesticides used in conventional farming that are synthetic chemicals are regulated by the EPA and require extensive data on toxicity, environmental impact, and efficacy before approval. The USDA also manages the Pesticide Data Program (PDP), which publishes an annual residue report. The PDP is a monitoring program that assesses trace residuals of synthetic pesticides used in conventional farming. It was created in 1991 because of public outcry and misinformation about synthetic versus natural pesticides.

The false belief that “natural chemicals” are inherently safe and chemophobia aimed at synthetic chemicals means the USDA PDP residue report only includes synthetic pesticide residues used in conventional farming; organic pesticides are excluded from this regulatory oversight. Weird, right?"

"Residue levels are monitored and reported, and every year, the report demonstrates the safety of conventionally-grown produce. The residue levels tested for and reported are not levels that should concern you. If anything, the USDA’s annual Pesticide Data Program (PDP) report should give you confidence that not only are farmers using as little pesticide application as possible to grow your foods and post-harvest processing of crops reduces any trace levels to minuscule quantities. Every year, over 99% of tested samples are below safety thresholds for each pesticide in question. Last year’s report demonstrates the same. Not only did over 99% of samples tested meet all safety criteria, but 38.8% of the thousands of samples monitored had no detectable pesticide residues."

"Consider a hypothetical. Say you see the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list and their claim blackberries are “dirty” according to their wildly misleading and anti-science methods. How many blackberries would you need to eat to even pose a risk?

In this instance, you have to convert the pesticide tolerance level to the acceptable daily intake (ADI), the amount of a substance that a human could ingest every day for their entire life and experience no adverse effects. The ADI level for malathion, set by the World Health Organization is 0.3 mg/kg/day. [2]

A person weighing 70 kg (154 lbs) would have to ingest 21 milligrams of malathion daily to reach the ADI. If we eat blackberries with the highest level detected at 0.45 ppm (0.45 milligrams of malathion per 1,000 grams (kg) of blackberries), that 70 kg individual would need to eat 46.7 kilograms, over 90 pounds of blackberries daily to reach malathion’s ADI."

"We can detect levels of substances that are irrelevant to our health, measured in units like parts per million, parts per billion, or parts per trillion. We have to compare those detected levels to their potential risk and your potential exposure.

This is a fundamental challenge when discussing pesticides or, really, any chemical (even though everything is chemicals).

The challenge is made worse when groups like the EWG take these minuscule quantities of detected pesticides and manipulate them to scare people from perfectly safe and more affordable conventional foods (read their methods here).

Of course, EWG is funded by large organic farming industry partners"

The Guardian is Wrong About Pesticides (Again)

By Cameron English of THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH.

"The activist group Friends of the Earth and its cheerleaders at The Guardian say soaring pesticide use is poisoning millions of people and killing thousands. True to form, they have misused the evidence to make their case. 

The evidence is quite clear at this point. Properly used, pesticides do not pose a serious risk to human health or the environment. Unfortunately, these observations haven't prevented activist groups and reporters from misleading the public about this very important topic. “Pesticide use around world almost doubles since 1990, report finds,” The Guardian reported on October 18:

Global pesticide use has soared by 80% since 1990, with the world market set to hit $130bn next year, according to a new Pesticide Atlas. But pesticides are also responsible for an estimated 11,000 human fatalities and the poisoning of 385 million people every year, the report finds.

These are undoubtedly troubling statistics to the uninitiated reader, but that's really all they are. Looking at the numbers in context clearly shows that the benefits of pesticide use outweigh the risk it poses.

"Soaring" pesticide use

Let's begin with the most shocking statistic—“Global pesticide use has continued to grow steadily for decades: Between 1990 and 2017 by about 80 percent,” according to the Guardian's cited “Pesticide Atlas,” authored by Friends of the Earth Europe (FOE). This figure doesn't mean much on its own. In fact, by subtly shifting how we measure pesticide use, we can get different results. Per $1,000 of agricultural production, pesticide use has declined over the same period, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (Figure 5). If we measure per capita, there's been essentially no change since 1990 (Figure 6). 

We should also ask an important question about this 80 percent figure: compared to what? For example, if we begin in 1996, the first year genetically engineered (GE) crops occupied significant areas of farmland (1.66 million hectares), we get a very important piece of context. As economist Graham Brookes reported in a study published this month:

Since 1996, the use of pesticides on the GM crop area has fallen by 748.6 million kg of active ingredient (a 7.2% reduction) relative to the amount reasonably expected if this crop area had been planted to conventional crops … In terms of the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops … this improved by 17.3%

Notice the subtle yet significant variable Brookes' peer-reviewed analysis injects into the discussion: how much higher would pesticide use have been absent the introduction of GE crops in the mid-1990s? As economists have known for centuries, we have to consider the seen and unseen effects of a given action. FOE dedicated less than two pages (p 36-37) to the impact of GE technology, and the group failed to explain how the introduction of these improved crops influenced pesticide use. The report only included numbers on the application of the herbicide glyphosate and “insecticides” for select countries and periods of time.

That leads us to another reason why these figures are misleading. Pesticides are not all created equal. As FOE correctly explained, “factors such as the toxicity of the substances, methods of application, application rates, or the frequency of application also play a role” in their health and environmental impacts.

Even in cases where the amount of pesticide applied increases, there may still be a net benefit if a less-toxic chemical displaces or reduces the use of another with a worse environmental profile. Better herbicides and insecticides have been developed over the years that make this sort of progress possible. Summing the amounts of a chemical applied to a crop isn't nearly as informative as the public has been led to believe. As weed scientist Andrew Kniss noted in 2017:

A large increase in the weight of herbicide applied could simply be due to a switch from a herbicide which is active at low doses to a less bioactive herbicide. Likewise, a reduction in the total weight of herbicide applied may not actually be indicative of reduced herbicide use, as a single herbicide may be replaced by many different herbicides with lower use rates, and could actually pose substantially greater risk to applicators and the environment.

With those very crucial qualifiers in mind, we can see why FOE's emphasis on “Global consumption of pesticides” is completely misdirected.

The same can be said of the Guardian's fearful observation that pesticides are “responsible for an estimated 11,000 human fatalities and the poisoning of 385 million people every year.” These figures were extrapolated from 7,446 fatalities and 733,921 non-fatal cases of alleged pesticide poisoning reported by individual studies.

The researchers acknowledged that their conclusion was "partly based on a weak database. Some countries were covered by only one publication or by data on small samples sizes [as few as 50 people] of specific study populations." Additionally, they explained, "most studies gave no clear case definitions and timeframes." It's difficult to estimate pesticide poisonings when the definition of "poisoning" is uncertain.

Statistical footwork aside, pesticide poisoning is tragic, though it's usually the result of improper use or attempted suicide. It has nothing to do with the safety of our food supply, nor the risk farmers and pesticide applicators face when they use these chemicals as intended. We wouldn't use drunk-driving fatalities to discourage people from commuting to work in the morning, yet this is exactly the sort of sophistry FOE has engaged in.

The inescapable conclusion is this: pesticides, while potentially very dangerous, are essential tools that help farmers produce our abundant food supply. In a world without access to these chemicals, many more people would be hungry, sick, or even dead. I'm grateful we don't live there."

On the International Agency for Research on Cancer classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen

From European Journal of Cancer Prevention : the Official Journal of the European Cancer Prevention Organisation (ECP) [01 Jan 2018, 27(1):82-87]

By Robert E Tarone. Robert Tarone retired in 2016 after 28 years as Mathematical Statistician at the US National Cancer Institute and 14 years as Biostatistics Director at the International Epidemiology Institute. 

Abstract

The recent classification by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the herbicide glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen has generated considerable discussion. The classification is at variance with evaluations of the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate by several national and international regulatory bodies. The basis for the IARC classification is examined under the assumptions that the IARC criteria are reasonable and that the body of scientific studies determined by IARC staff to be relevant to the evaluation of glyphosate by the Monograph Working Group is sufficiently complete. It is shown that the classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen was the result of a flawed and incomplete summary of the experimental evidence evaluated by the Working Group. Rational and effective cancer prevention activities depend on scientifically sound and unbiased assessments of the carcinogenic potential of suspected agents. Implications of the erroneous classification of glyphosate with respect to the IARC Monograph Working Group deliberative process are discussed.

The $289 Million Verdict Against Monsanto Is Scientifically Outrageous

California jurors misled by activist misinformation

By Ronald Bailey of Reason. Excerpt:

"I am truly sorry that DeWayne Johnson is suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but years of scientific research has determined that it is exceedingly unlikely, despite the outrageous verdict of a California jury on Friday, that he contracted NHL from using the herbicide glyphosate. Applying the relatively low standard of proof required in California civil courts that a claim is "more likely to be true than not true," the jury awarded Johnson a $289 million judgment including $250 million in punitive damages against Monsanto, the maker of the herbicide.

This is an injustice. So far every regulatory agency that has assessed the safety of glyphosate has concluded that it is unlikely to be a human carcinogen at doses at which people encounter the herbicide. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's December, 2017, draft human health risk assessment concluded that "glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans." The agency's assessment additionally found "no other meaningful risks to human health when the product is used according to the pesticide label."

Similarly, a 2015 evaluation of the herbicide by the highly precautionary European Food Safety Authority concluded that "glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans." Another EFSA review in May covering all crops treated with glyphosate included "a risk assessment which shows that current exposure levels are not expected to pose a risk to human health."

Specifically relevant to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a long run study of more than 50,000 licensed agricultural pesticide applicators in North Carolina and Iowa published in May reported that "in this large, prospective cohort study, no association was apparent between glyphosate and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including NHL and its subtypes."

So given the reams of solid scientific evidence for the safety of glyphosate, how did the jury get their verdict so wrong? Among other things, the court allowed Environmental Defense Fund activist Christopher Portier to mislead them by permitting him to serve as an expert witness for the plaintiff Johnson.

As I reported earlier, Portier chaired the Advisory Group to Recommend Priorities for the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) which recommended that the agency evaluate glyphosate. He subsequently served as an invited specialist to the IARC group that evaluated studies related to glyphosate and the risk of cancer. In 2015, the IARC issued, partly as a result of Portier's influence, a scientifically flawed monograph that classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen."

Glyphosate Saves Lives, Reduces Child Labor, and More

By Angela Logomasini of CEI.

"David Zaruk, aka the Risk Monger, has produced an excellent series of blog posts on why the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in “Roundup”) is a wonderful thing, despite “cancer classifications” and demonization by greens. In a refreshingly blunt and honest series of posts, he makes some fantastic points that must shock green activists who can’t imagine why anyone would dare use a chemical to control noxious weeds, grow food, and feed the world. 

Some key points that Zaruk offers include:

1. Weed killers help reduce child labor. Yes, that’s what I said. Zaruk has real-life experience to prove it. Check out this post.
2. The cancer researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have lost credibility within Europe’s scientific community because of their reckless classification of glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.” Indeed, the decision is tainted with junk science, anti-pesticide activism, and politics. Zaruk has all the details here and here.
3. “Glyphosate Saves Lives.” That’s item #6 on Zaruk’s post: “10 Reasons why Glyphosate is Good.” Zaruk offers so much insightful information in this post that it should be mandatory reading for anyone who doubts that weed killers can be safe, good for the environment, and yes, even save lives. Check it out."