Most Chemicals have not Been Tested for Safety

Cancer Pesticide Link - US President's Cancer Panel Report

Critical Issues around Chemicals Raised by the Report

Most Chemicals have not Been Tested for Safety 'Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety.'

Pesticides Linked to Many Types of Cancers
'Nearly 1,400 pesticides have been registered (i.e., approved) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for agricultural and non-agricultural use. Exposure to these chemicals has been linked to brain/central nervous system (CNS), breast, colon, lung, ovarian (female spouses), pancreatic, kidney, testicular, and stomach cancers, as well as Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and soft tissue sarcoma. Pesticide-exposed farmers, pesticide applicators, crop duster pilots, and manufacturers also have been found to have elevated rates of prostate cancer, melanoma, other skin cancers, and cancer of the lip.

'Approximately 40 chemicals classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as known, probable, or possible human carcinogens, are used in EPA-registered pesticides now on the market.'


Read more here

• Organic Federation of Australia
  

• May 10, 2010 - Cancer Pesticide Link – US President's Cancer Panel Report

Food for thought.

Hi, I pinched this from the Warm Earth Organic Gardening newsletter and thought it might provoke some deep thinking.

Feeding the world

The head of Australia's national science organisation says climate change poses extraordinary challenges to global food production in the future. CSIRO chief executive Megan Clark has warned higher prices on water and agricultural carbon emissions will make it difficult to sustain the world's growing urban population. Dr Clark told the National Press Club in Canberra that the amount of food needed over the next 50 years is equal to the total amount of food ever produced by humans. "That means in the working life of my children as much grain as has ever been harvested since the Egyptian time," she said. "As much fish as we've ever eaten, as much milk as we've ever taken from reluctant cows on frosty mornings, every frosty morning that we've ever known." She says the challenge will be made even more difficult because climate change will put a higher price on water and on agricultural carbon emissions. "One area where we will have to adapt very quickly is in food production," she said. "It is really hard for me to comprehend that in the next 50 years we'll have to produce as much food as we have ever produced in human history." (ABC News)

I don't know how we can do it!!
Cheers
Stewart

It's good news week?

Sao Paulo hails hydrogen-powered bus.

This sounds encouraging!! What do you think?

Brazil's biggest city has unveiled plans to introduce Latin America's first hydrogen-powered bus, which from August will plough the city's thronged streets, spewing water vapor instead of carbon dioxide. Read more.