In the last few months, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) submitted reports on some of America’s heavily used pesticides and identified five as the ones where the health risks are the highest: malathion, atrazine, glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, and the insecticides known as neonicotinoids.

They are all under review as they have raised major concerns, enough so that they are either illegal or severely restricted in Europe. Yet in America, they are the most commonly used chemicals on mass-scale produce such as apples, tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, spinach, kale and grapes.

Atrazine is on sugarcane in the South and corn in the Midwest. Hazardous health and environment links include certain cancers, hormonal and reproductive. Atrazine contaminates ground, surface and rainwater as it easily runs off fields.

Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the U.S. Geological Survey says, “There’s a lot of atrazine in the drinking water in the Midwest.”

The EPA is also reviewing atrazine and glyphosate risks to mammals, fish and birds after the Center for Biological Diversity concluded the “atrazine released into the environment in the U.S. is likely harming most species of plants and animals.”

Atrazine is the second most widely used pesticide in the U.S.

The EPA will make its decision sometime this year regarding atrazine and its re-issue and/or restriction policies.

The EPA has slowly been limiting allowed use of Chlorpyrifos, an insecticide that kills bugs by paralyzing their nervous systems. But it has proven concerns about neurotoxicity in humans, especially kids, and can literally cause changes in their brains that cannot be undone. 

It is found largely in surface water all across America from corn growing, but also many other fruits and vegetables, nurseries and greenhouses. Farm labor safety is also an issue using these sprays. Levels eaten by women and children, according to Natural Resource Defense Council scientists were up 14,000 percent from “safe levels.”

Glyphosate, or Roundup, is the most widely used pesticide in America and across the globe. All our corn and soy grown in the U.S. is “treated” with Roundup. It’s also on wheat, rice, and loads of non-organic fruits and vegetables. Yet, the World Health Organization has classified glyphosate as  “probably a human carcinogen” and linked it to hormone disruption, antibiotics resistance and other adverse health effects. They are finally acknowledging this chemical as more than controversial, it’s contentious.

According to an article in Civil Eats online zine, “California has proposed adding glyphosate to the list of chemicals the state considers carcinogenic—a move that would require cancer warning labels on all glyphosate products. Monsanto, the world’s leading glyphosate producer, sued to stop this, but a California court has ruled the state can proceed.”

The EPA is working on regulating these toxic inputs on the nation’s industrialized food supply; in the meantime, we can do something as individuals by purchasing as much pesticide-free food as we can.