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EPA just approved new ‘forever chemical’ pesticides for use on food (www.bostonglobe.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/politics@sh.itjust.works
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cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/35342165

The Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with approvals for pesticides containing “forever chemicals” as an active ingredient, dismissing concerns about health and environmental impacts raised by some scientists and activists.

This month, the agency approved two new pesticides that meet the internationally recognized definition for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or fluorinated substances, and has announced plans for four additional approvals. The authorized pesticides, cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, which was approved Thursday, will be used on vegetables such as romaine lettuce, broccoli and potatoes.

Archive: https://archive.ph/AapVs

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[–] 16 points 11 months ago

If I weren't boycotting American food products before, I definitely would be now.

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    [–] 10 points 11 months ago

    Brilliant! 🤬

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    [–] 11 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Thanks republiQans. May your eventual natural deaths be really annoying to you.

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    • [–] 5 points 11 months ago*

    "We just poisoned your food, our food, and everyone's food" - News blurb, mostly unnoticed.

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    66 comments in c/news@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 109 points 11 months ago (19 children)

    ...they're giving me cancer while simultaneously quadrupling my health insurance payments. My government has decided to kill me.

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago (18 children)

    Only if you are poor. That's the goal.

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  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago (14 children)

    Only poor people eat produce and drink water?

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (13 children)

    Rich people have organic food and water filters.

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Are there any water filters that are proven to filter PFAS?

    And what about irrigation water that is contaminated and sprayed on the organic crops?

    I get the rich people hate, but this does feel like an issue that will impact literally everyone. Once something is in the water cycle it’s hard to get rid of it.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    For filters with semipermeable membranes, like sea water filters, FPAS and similar molecules are way too big to pass.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    Filtration of PFAS depends on the individual makeup of each chemical. The cross section of a organic fluoride containing compound is about the same as water so I would expect for chemicals without aromatic rings or branches a membrane would not be as effective and even then what's happening is a time bomb where when these chemicals do eventually break down they break down into things that are harder to filter.

    We should be blanket restricting organohalides except iodine based ones.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    when these chemicals do eventually break down they break down into things that are harder to filter.

    The very point with PFAS is that they don't break down. At least not without serious energy input.

    And membrane filters catch sodium chloride, which is way smaller than PFAS molecules.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    Zero filters claim to filter PFAS. I don't know if certified organic produce allows these chemicals to be used, but the organization that certifies food is also federal, so there's no reason to trust it. I'm really hoping organic produce is safe from this. I would be able to get produce at Costco which is often both organic and affordable.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

    You can't filter out PFAS from the food chain.

    Agricultural runoff gets into water supplies. In water supplies it gets used for irrigation, drinking water for animals, or goes out to sea.

    In each case forever chemicals will just build up.

    So even like that wagyu beef or wild caught fish eventually is just poisoning you.

    Plus PFAS are notorious for being difficult to filter and when they do break down they break down into smaller halomethanes/haloalkanes which are also typically toxic and even harder to filter conventionally. The main way to eliminate halomethanes is to bubble water to evaporate them into the air. A slow process which will make the contaminants airborne.

    Of course what does it matter if you get a new beach house courtesy of Bayer or Monsanto

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  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Even if it’s 100% true, you’re being unnecessarily negative. It’s not a binary question, but “more” or “less”. There is definitely value in wayvpcho g the sources of your food

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Nobody said "don't watch what you eat" so don't bullshit yourself about what's being said here.

    I've worked on PFAS filtration system designs that the US military funded for cities near airbases. Firefighting PFAS materials made their way into a lot of well water systems and municipal systems sometimes very far way. Its very difficult to reliably remove them from water.

    These materials are hard to control once they're out in the wild.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (1 child)

    These materials are hard to control once they’re out in the wild.

    Extremely, and that’s my bottom line to someone who claims some chemical in the hugeclass that makes up PFAShasn’t been proven harmful yet. Can we afford until it is unavoidably ubiquitous in the environment, can’t be cleaned up, and will last indefinitely? And it may already be

    But I’ll also stand by: protected watershed makes a difference, filtered water makes a difference, organic food makes a difference. We’re already at the point of these chemicals being unavoidable in the environment, but we can take actions to reduce our personal exposure

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    But I’ll also stand by: protected watershed makes a difference, filtered water makes a difference, organic food makes a difference. We’re already at the point of these chemicals being unavoidable in the environment, but we can take actions to reduce our personal exposure

    Sure but its expensive and only certain sources are controllable. Do what you can to avoid it and especially do what you can to avoid helping these companies profit off this because that will ensure less of these chemicals get made in the long term.

    I do sometimes think part of the problem that the people who are now in control of the FDA are the same people that made millions selling people home water filtration kits because government water was scawy (Alex Jones for instance used to sell water filtration kits and now his politicians are making them more necessary)

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I have bad news about forever chemicals for whatever dumbass thinks this will only affect poor people.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Nah, the wealthy can use extremely expensive cutting edge filtering methods that remove all PFAS chemicals. I've done a whole research project on this. There are a handful of different methods, it's just that it's prohibitively expensive to scale up.

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    • [–] 57 points 11 months ago

    I'm sure that'll work wonders for US agricultural exports. /s

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    [–] 37 points 11 months ago

    Environmental Poisoning Agency

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    [–] 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 child)

    Why are people mostly silent about this shit?

    Please, please, please start spreading this awareness with everybody you know!

    From the article:

    The agency also announced plans to relax a rule requiring companies to report all products containing PFAS and has proposed weakening drinking water standards for the chemicals.

    So they are deliberately trying to cover up the pollution crisis in the US.

    https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/

    We test for, regulate, and monitor about 100 chemicals in our water. There are many, many thousands of chemicals that could be present in our water and harming our health.

    Related:

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/18/california-pfas-forever-chemicals

    https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2025/01/forever-chemicals-sludge-may-taint-nearly-70-million-farmland-acres

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago*

    Because everyday all day we’re bombarded by evil atrocities our government is committing on us and others and they dgaf what we think. We’re tired. It’s looking more and more like the entire world needs to overthrow the wealthy in solidarity

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    • [–] 30 points 11 months ago

    Who wants to live to old age anyways?

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    [–] 29 points 11 months ago

    And that's gonna slowly make its way into Canada and Mexico, yay, the US is a toxic dump site

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    [–] 44 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    As if we need another reason to boycott mercan food. They are explicit about poisoning people now!

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  • [–] 19 points 11 months ago

    That's the reason why the EU only imports very selected kinds of food from the US. And even then, most of those are specially produced for export.

    • Among the thousands of beef farmers in the US, there is only a handful certified for export to Europe.
    • Kelloggs produces two kinds of Fruit Loops: One for the US market, and the other for export, which does not contain the chemicals that are illegal even in China of all places.
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    • [–] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I feel like states should just ban this shit.

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    • [–] 18 points 11 months ago

    Of course they did. Trump ended the EPA months ago. Think "invasion of the body snatchers" but for government.

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    [–] 18 points 11 months ago

    Now, I am not a very eco-friendly kind of person...but I don't trust the Trump Regime to not fuck up. Their approvals here will almost certainly kill people, and probably wouldn't even benefit capitalists in the long run.

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    [–] 37 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    Every country in the world should ban food from the US.

    I'm sorry if you're American, you're fucked, but it's what you guys voted for. The rest of the world should try and save itself

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  • [–] 16 points 11 months ago

    As an American I agree, I don’t trust our government to do the right thing and big corporations run all our farms. I don’t trust them to do the right thing either.

    Unfortunately, that shit gets into the water and makes its way everywhere.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    The "fun" part is that 'forever chemicals' really are what they're claiming to be on the label. Practically every living thing on the planet has some PFAS stuff in their body. Veritasium made a video about that a while back.

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    [–] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    What MAHA is thinking about this?

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    • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    i am so glad i already have a terminal illness. this world is fucked.

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    [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I know prices can be prohibitive, but the more we can buy organic, the better. It's the only alternative agricultural method that has gained enough commercial traction that, if it ever does become popular enough, has the possibility of making the pesticide-dependent model infeasible as a business model.

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  • [+] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    I have skepticisms about the accuracy of that claim. Measuring yield isn't necessarily cut and dry in the first place.

    Big picture, conventional agriculture is not sustainable, and moreover, we are always going to continue having these toxic pollutions occur so long as we continue to depend on conventional ag. The only way to stop the poison is to stop taking the poison.

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    • [–] 19 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    Americans are fucking twats. What a pathetic excuse for a country they’ve become.

    oh well.

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  • [–] 40 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    You think the forces that did this to us aren’t targeting your country? You’re in for some fun times ahead

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  • [–] 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    You fucking loser, kicking people while they're down. I've been voting against this shit my entire life.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I think voting is not enough, people need to get active politically, ideally with other parties than blue or red.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    In the USA all other political parties are effectively barred from participation. The barriers are high the costs are worse.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    That's why there are so many pushes to get RCV on the books. Also why many Republican-controlled states are preemptively banning it, because they know they'd never get power again if it was a truly open and fair primary/general. Some establishment Democrats are trying to ban it too because they also benefit by the duopoly.

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    • [–] 4 points 11 months ago* (4 children)

    Never trust anything the fda says or does. Ever. Its a for sale organization.

    I got into an argument the other day with someone cause I said Americas food is poison. And they said i was simply trash talking America with no proof. No proof? Uhhhhhh

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    The article is about the EPA, though

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    • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    :(

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    [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    Taking the fluoride out of the water and putting it directly into your food.

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    [+] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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    • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    Eat the poison you filthy pleabs.

    -The EPA on behalf of the rich donors

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