PLANET IN PERIL

Consumer Reports magazine: November 2012. Our findings show a real need for federal standards for this toxin. Full story here.

Apr 30'12 San Francisco Chronicle April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Babies exposed in the womb to a commonly used insecticide have brain abnormalities after birth, according to a study that looked at children born before the U.S. limited the chemical's use. Details here. A "crop-duster" sprays Lorsban, (Dursban's "sister" chemical, sharing the same active ingredient, chlorpyrfos) on a canola crop in western Manitoba PLT photo. Please also read: "Are Pesticide Regulators on the Take?" (See chlorpyrfos reference in section headed "So Who or What is to Blame?)

18 MARCH 2010 | GENEVA | WASHINGTON DC In some areas….

                                          by Larry Powell Oh look! What the world needs now! Yet another "crop protection" product! A PinP photo. I met him recently at a family event.   Since he prefers not to be identified, I'll call him "James," which is not his real name. James moved slowly with the use of a cane; a distinguished looking senior with graying hair. At dinner, he shared bits and pieces of his personal story with me.  It was both amazing and tragic. He had worked for a number of years in the farm chemical industry in western Canada. Industry "experts" convinced him at the time that the chemicals he was working with were so safe, "I would have drunk them if they had asked me to!"  Turns out, he didn't have to.  James is convinced that, merely inhaling their fumes over the years was enough to change his life forever. And not for the better.   Later, at my request, James sends me a

Winnipeg Free Press - By: Laura Rance - Manitoba Co-Operator 6/02/2010 Workshops to focus on growing problem... Canola swaths in October . l.p. photo

Staff - Manitoba Co-Operator - 7/27/2009 Any Canadian hog herds that come down with the pandemic strain of H1N1 won't face the same quarantines as one of the few herds in the world known to have caught the virus. Click headline for full story. Kichiro Sato

Time Magazine - By Bryan Walsh Friday, May. 15, 2009 In an initial step toward what could be the first wrongful-death suit of its kind, Texas resident Steven Trunnell has filed a petition against Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, based in Virginia, and the owner of a massive pig farm in Perote, Mexico, near the village of La Gloria, where the earliest cases of the new H1N1 flu were detected. Trunnell filed the petition in his home state on behalf of his late wife, Judy Dominguez Trunnell, the 33-year-old special-education teacher who on May 4 became the first U.S. resident to die of H1N1 flu. Read more here.... Also read related article here...

by Larry Powell A west-central Manitoba man says his family got sick from exposure to chemicals from crop dusting planes this summer. Lloyd & Donna Burghart. In the foreground, a sow with several piglets. PinP photo Tens of thousands of acres in the Swan Valley, and around Roblin to the south, were sprayed with crop pesticides from spray planes in July and August, following a serious outbreak of Bertha armyworms, which destroy canola crops. The Swan Valley area is in the far west region of Manitoba, near the Saskatchewan border. Now, Lloyd and Donna Burghart of nearby Bowsman said they believe Lorsban (chlorpyrifos), an insecticide that was being sprayed on a canola crop across the road from them, has made them and their four children ill. "I started shaking and a-sweatin' and I kind of was panicking and I didn't know … how severe the symptoms would be," Lloyd Burghart recalled. "I didn't know if I was going to actually make it to the