Thread: Salmon caught near Seattle proven to be inundated with antidepressants, cocaine and m

Salmon caught near Seattle proven to be inundated with antidepressants, cocaine and more

Wednesday, March 02, 2016 by: Daniel Barker
Tags: salmon, Puget Sound, drug contamination



(NaturalNews) We're all familiar with horror stories about juveniles on drugs, but normally it's humans that are involved, not fish. This case, however, involves juvenile chinook salmon who never had the chance to "Just Say No."

Disturbing new research has indicated that young salmon found in Puget Sound tested positive for more than 80 different drugs, including cocaine, antidepressants and dozens of other medications used by humans.

When researchers tested the water at and near sewage treatment plants in the estuaries of Puget Sound near Seattle, Washington, they discovered high levels of drugs and personal care products – at some of the highest concentrations found anywhere in the nation.

The tissues of migratory chinook salmon and local staghorn sculpin also contained these compounds – even in the fish found in estuaries far from the sewage treatment plants where the water was previously considered "pristine."

As reported by The Seattle Times:

"The medicine chest of common drugs also included Flonase, Aleve and Tylenol. Paxil, Valium and Zoloft. Tagamet, OxyContin and Darvon. Nicotine and caffeine. Fungicides, antiseptics and anticoagulants. And Cipro and other antibiotics galore.

"Why are the levels so high? It could be because people here use more of the drugs detected, or it could be related to wastewater-treatment plants' processes, said Jim Meador, an environmental toxicologist at NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and lead author on a paper published this week in the journal Environmental Pollution."



Sewage treatment plants unable to cope

The presence of these drugs in the water appears to be related to the inability of the wastewater plants to fully remove these chemicals during treatment. But high fecal coliform counts in some areas of the Sound suggest that leaky septic tanks may also be contributing to the problem.

Some of the drugs found in the fish and the water of Puget Sound are difficult to remove using standard sewage treatment methods:

"Treatment plants in King County are effective in removing some drugs in wastewater, but many drugs are recalcitrant and remain. Seizure drugs, for instance, are very hard to remove, and ibuprofen levels are knocked down — but not out — during treatment, said Betsy Cooper, permit administrator for the county's Wastewater Treatment Division."

Who is really to blame?

But the blame should not be placed entirely on the treatment plants, according to Cooper. "You have treatment doing its best to remove these, chemically and biologically," she said, "but it's not just the treatment quality, it's also the amount that we use day to day and our assumption that it just goes away."

Shamefully, our own drug dependence is now poisoning other species as well. We have become a nation of drugged-out zombies, but that doesn't give us the right to turn fish and other animals into the same.

Maybe it's time to start realizing that prescription pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter remedies and illicit drugs are doing us – and our environment – far more harm than good.

We've bought into the Big Pharma-created myth that there is a chemical solution to all our problems – physical and mental – when in reality these substances are the cause of much of our "dis-ease" and general out-of-balance lifestyles.

The obvious solution

Although Western pharmaceutical medicine arguably has some value, almost everything these drugs are designed to treat can be more effectively dealt with using natural methods which promote healing rather than dependence.

And one of the obvious lessons from the situation in Puget Sound is that when you make bad decisions at one level, there will be negative effects on other levels as well. We don't live in a vacuum, and our unhealthy lifestyles have an impact on all living things.

We're simultaneously poisoning ourselves and our surroundings. Maybe it's time for another approach ...

http://www.naturalnews.com/053163_sa...amination.html

Strawberries contain highest amount of pesticides

By Delaney Lux, Morning News Producer CONNECT
Posted: Apr 13, 2016 7:01 AM PDT

Next time you're walking through the grocery store, you may want to think twice before picking up that container of strawberries. The Environmental Working Group says strawberries are now the most-pesticide ridden produce.

Experts say some of those chemicals can even be linked to cancer and hormone disruptions. While the growing season for the berry is in the summer -- pesticides have stretched the fruit's growing season, mostly in California.

Federal officials say 98% of the berries tested had some sort of pesticide residue.

http://www.fox28.com/story/31712178/...-of-pesticides

ALL 48 FRUITS AND VEGETABLES WITH PESTICIDE RESIDUE DATA

EWG analyzed pesticide residue testing data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration to come up with rankings for these popular fresh produce items.

All 48 foods are listed below from worst to best(lower numbers = more pesticides).

Note: EWG analyzed pesticide tests of 48 popular produce items. Domestic and imported versions of two items - blueberries and snap peas - showed sharply different results, so we have ranked those domestic and imported items separately. As a result, the full list of foods ranked by the Shopper's Guide displays 50 entries.
1
Strawberries



2
Apples



3
Nectarines



4
Peaches



5
Celery



6
Grapes



7
Cherries



8
Spinach



9
Tomatoes



10
Sweet bell peppers



11
Cherry tomatoes



12
Cucumbers



13
Snap peas - imported



14
Blueberries - domestic



15
Potatoes



16
Hot peppers +



17
Lettuce



18
Kale / collard greens +



19
Blueberries - imported



20
Green beans



21
Plums



22
Pears



23
Raspberries



24
Carrots



25
Winter squash



26
Tangerines



27
Summer squash*



28
Snap peas - domestic



29
Green onions



30
Bananas



31
Oranges



32
Watermelon



33
Broccoli



34
Sweet potatoes



35
Mushrooms



36
Cauliflower



37
Cantaloupe



38
Grapefruit



39
Honeydew melon



40
Eggplant



41
Kiwi



42
Papayas*



43
Mangos



44
Asparagus



45
Onions



46
Sweet peas frozen



47
Cabbage



48
Pineapples



49
Sweet Corn*



50
Avocados


http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list.php*

These articles give meaningless data. The first one asks why the levels of these drugs in the fish are so high but never bothers to tell just how high they are. The one ranking foods for pesticides is even more vague. It not only doesn't bother to say how much was found but also neglects to tell which pesticides were found. Modern analytical chemistry can detect extremely small amounts of chemicals. The real question is are the levels high enough to be harmful?

Two good sources for studies, numbers etc are Environmental Working Group http://www.ewg.org/ and TEDX http://www.endocrinedisruption.org/

The amount of pesticides sprayed on our food is outrageous and brings much profit to the chemical companies. The GMO crops already have superweeds. They have evolved quickly to withstand Round Up etc, so their answer is to spray more of it and make more money.

Even pushed Agent Orange on us. How many of our soldiers died due to AO, how many afflicted with life long problems? A tremendous amount, yet Dow's enlist Duo contains glyphosate (round up) and an AO component AND IS UNSAFE. Glyphosate (Round Up) is banned in many countries after research showed it is as deadly for humans as it is for plants.
WHO says carcinogen, California will label as a carcinogen.

The EPA has moved to rescind its approval of Enlist Duo due to conflicting claims from the manufacturer about synergistic effects from mixing the two herbicides. Dow had told the EPA that the combination of the two herbicides didn't enhance their toxicity to plants, but an earlier patent application from Dow claimed that it did. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/25/457393114/busted-epa-discovers-dow-weedkiller-claim-wants-it-off-the-market

Monsanto & Dow, Bayer also are outrageously deceitful, an endangerment to life and are profit mongers to the point of suing farmers wanting to use their own seeds to stop them and they did. They brought cancers galore to Indian farmers again forcing their products and seeds to be only available thru them.

Our politicians take their money like crazy to push thru their products and it works - hillary to name one. It is a racket that is damaging our health, killing our creatures like the bee that is necessary for many crops, and polluting our land, air and water.

Germany is working on a robot that trounces weeds - no pesticides needed.

Strawberries are the worst to eat if not organic.....
Pesticides + Poison Gases = Cheap, Year-Round Strawberries

By Bill Walker, Investigations Editor, and Sonya Lunder, Senior Analyst

Americans eat nearly eight pounds of fresh strawberries a year – and with them, dozens of pesticides, including chemicals that have been linked to cancer and reproductive damage or are banned in Europe.

Strawberries tested by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2009 and 2014 bore an average of 5.75 different pesticides per sample, compared to 1.74 pesticides per sample for all other produce, according to a new EWG analysis.


What’s worse, strawberry growers use jaw-dropping volumes of poisonous gases – some developed for chemical warfare but now banned by the Geneva Conventions – to sterilize their fields before planting, killing every pest, weed and other living thing in the soil.


For these reasons, the 2016 edition of EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™ for the first time elevates strawberries at the top of the Dirty Dozen™ list. USDA tests found that strawberries are the fresh produce items most likely to be contaminated with pesticide residues, even after they are picked, rinsed in the field and washed before eating.

If you want to avoid pesticides and don't want strawberries grown in soil injected with nerve gases, EWG advises that you always buy organically grown berries. We make the same recommendation for other Dirty Dozen™ foods.

The facts about strawberries and pesticides come from USDA’s Pesticide Data Program. In 2014, USDA scientists tested 176 batches of strawberries – about 85 percent grown in the U.S., with the rest from Mexico. When we added the 2014 test data to results from tests of 703 batches in 2009, strawberries displaced apples at the top of the Dirty Dozen™ list of U.S.-marketed produce most likely to be contaminated with pesticide residues.

The USDA’s 2014 strawberry tests found that:

• Almost all samples – 98 percent – had detectable residues of at least one pesticide.
• Some 40 percent had residues of 10 or more pesticides.
• The dirtiest strawberry sample had residues of 17 different pesticides.
• Strawberry growers used 60 different pesticides in various combinations.

How hazardous are the chemicals used on strawberries? Some are fairly benign. But some are linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental damage, hormone disruption and neurological problems.

Among the worst:

• Carbendazim, a hormone-disrupting fungicide that damages the male reproductive system, was detected on 30 percent of 2014 samples. The European Union has banned it because of its intense toxicity.
• Bifenthrin, found on more than 40 percent of samples in 2014, is an insecticide that California regulators have designated a possible human carcinogen.
• Malathion, found on more than 20 percent of samples in 2009 and 10 percent in 2014, is toxic to the nervous system and, according to the International Agency for Cancer Research, a probable human carcinogen. It is often sprayed to eradicate mosquitos and other insects. In addition, malaoxon, a particularly toxic chemical formed when malathion breaks down, showed up on more than 10 percent of the 2009 samples.

As disturbing as these results are, they do not violate weak U.S. laws and regulations on pesticides on food.

Only about seven percent of the strawberries sampled in 2014 had levels of pesticide residues considered illegal. Five samples had pesticide levels that exceeded the "tolerance level," the legally permissible level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Nine samples contained pesticides illegal for use on strawberries.

The EPA’s tolerance levels are too lenient to protect public health. They are a yardstick to help the agency’s personnel determine whether farmers are applying pesticides properly. They were set years ago and they do not account for newer research showing that toxic chemicals can be harmful at very small doses, particularly when people are exposed to combinations of chemicals.

If pesticide tolerance levels were set to protect the health of children, who are more vulnerable than adults to small doses, more fruits and vegetables would fail. The current EPA pesticide tolerances are like having a 500 mph speed limit – if the rules of the road are so loose it’s impossible to violate them, no one can feel safe.

Fresh strawberries once were a seasonal treat, available in limited supply only for a few spring and summer months. In recent decades the increased use of pesticides and other chemically-aided growing methods have made cheap strawberries available year round, and aggressive marketing campaigns have spurred consumption. Today the average American eats almost eight pounds of fresh strawberries a year – nearly four times as much as in 1980.

More than three-fourths of the fresh strawberries sold in the U.S. are grown in California, the state that most carefully tracks pesticide use. California data show that in 2014, nearly 300 pounds of pesticides were applied to each acre of strawberries – an astonishing amount, compared to about five pounds of pesticides per acre of corn, which is considered a pesticide-intensive crop.

But only about 20 percent of the chemicals used on California strawberries were pesticides that can leave residues on harvested fruit. The other 80 percent -- more than 9.7 million pounds in 2014 – were fumigants, which are poisonous gases injected directly into the ground to sterilize the soil before planting.

Fumigants are acutely toxic gases that kill every living thing in the soil. Some were originally developed as chemical warfare agents, now banned by the Geneva Conventions. After growers inject fumigants, they cover the fields with plastic tarp in an effort to keep the gas underground and away from people and animals But fumigants can leak during application and from torn tarps, sending the deadly fumes adrift and endangering farm workers and people who live nearby.

The most notorious strawberry fumigant is methyl bromide. An international treaty banned it in 1987 because it destroys the earth's protective ozone layer, but for almost 40 years U.S. strawberry growers have fought for and won so-called “critical use exemptions" from the EPA, which will finally end this year.

Two decades ago, EWG and other groups campaigned against methyl bromide in California's Central Coast region, where most of the U.S. crop is grown. Urban development in the region has brought hundreds of thousands of residents into close proximity with strawberry fields. The campaign forced the state to establish protective buffer zones near schools and neighborhoods and to restrict methyl bromide injection during school hours. These rules reduced Californians’ exposure to methyl bromide but fell far short of eliminating this dangerous chemical.

Under the EPA phase-out, methyl bromide use on strawberries has steadily declined. Today, growers are using less methyl bromide on their strawberry fields. But the newer soil fumigants that are replacing it are also hazardous. These include chloropicrin, the active ingredient in tear gas, and 1,3-dichloropropene, a carcinogen sold by Dow Chemical Company as Telone. Both are banned in the European Union.

In 2014 the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed how Dow lobbied for and won a loophole to allow California strawberry growers to double their annual use of Telone. As a result, the Center reported, more than one million Californians were regularly exposed to higher concentrations of Telone than were previously considered safe. The same year, a state study found that chloropicrin in the air in Watsonville, a rapidly growing city in the heart of the California strawberry belt, exceeded the state's safety standard by 40 percent.

The organic alternative to fumigation combines the traditional tool of crop rotation, meant to control the buildup of pests and pathogens, with a new technology that’s akin to composting.

Growers mix a carbon-rich material such as rice bran or molasses into topsoil, which is then saturated with water and covered with a plastic tarp. Under the tarp, the organic slurry gives off natural byproducts that are toxic to pathogens.

This method is working as well as fumigation, with growers who use it reporting almost no loss in crop yield. It’s more expensive, driving up the cost of organic strawberries – more than $4 a pound in the store, compared to about $2.50 a pound for the conventional variety.

Organic strawberries represent less than 10 percent of the market nationwide, but their share is growing rapidly. As more growers turn away from pesticides and fumigants, the price of organics is expected to drop.

For those of us who don’t want to eat pesticide residues and who want to stop fumigants from endangering workers and neighbors, buying organic is a small price to pay. The transformation of strawberries from an occasional treat to a cheap and abundant supermarket staple should serve as cautionary tale about the consequences of chemically-driven industrial agriculture.

https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/strawbe...ign=201604FNSB

Two widely used pesticides likely to harm 97% of endangered species in US

Malathion and chlorpyrifos are each likely to harm most of the 1,782 mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and plants listed under the Endangered Species Act



The grizzly bear is one of the animals named in the EPA analysis. photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Oliver Milman in San Francisco
Thursday 7 April 2016 15.48 EDT Last modified on Thursday 7 April 2016 16.07 EDT

Almost all of the 1,700 most endangered plants and animals in the US are likely to be harmed by two widely used pesticides, an alarming new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis has found.

Malathion, an insecticide registered for use in the US since 1956, is likely to cause harm to 97% of the 1,782 mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and plants listed under the Endangered Species Act. Malathion is commonly used to treat fruit, vegetables and plants for pests, as well as on pets to remove ticks.

A separate pesticide, chlorpyrifos, is also a severe risk to 97% of America’s most threatened flora and fauna. Chlorpyrifos, which smells a little like rotten eggs, is regularly deployed to exterminate termites, mosquitoes and roundworms.

A third pesticide, diazinon, often used on cockroaches and ants, threatens 79% of endangered species. The EPA study is the first of its kind to look at whether common pesticides harm US wildlife.

The risk posed by malathion and chlorpyrifos is so widespread across the US that the few species considered not at risk are mainly those already classified as extinct, the EPA study found. In March last year, the World Health Organization said that malathion and diazinon are “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “For the first time in history, we finally have data showing just how catastrophically bad these pesticides are for endangered species – from birds and frogs to fish and plants.

“These dangerous pesticides have been used without proper analysis for decades, and now’s the time to take this new information and create commonsense measures to protect plants, animals and people from these chemicals.”

Environmental groups and some farmers have been pushing the federal government to better explain the impact of pesticides upon wildlife and humans. There have been calls to ban seven organophosphate pesticides – used on corn, cotton, watermelon and wheat – due to evidence that they can cause cognitive problems in children and thousands of deaths among bird species.

In January, the EPA acknowledged that imidacloprid, one of the world’s most commonly used pesticides, can be harmful to honeybees, the most important pollinators of crops. Jonathan Lundgren, a senior entomologist, has accused federal agencies of suppressing negative research into the effects of pesticides. Federal officials have rejected the claims.

“The EPA has allowed chemical companies to register more than 16,000 pesticides without properly considering their impacts. That has to stop,” Burd said. “These evaluations are a huge step forward for the EPA. Now that we know the magnitude of danger these pesticides pose, it’s clear we need to take action.”

The EPA was contacted for comment on further action as a result of the studies.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...a-insecticides