The Thin End

A federal court has ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos because it is harmful to human health.   This is good news for the environment as much as it is for human safety. From peregrine falcons to European starlings Just as peregrine falcons help alert us to the harmful effects of organochlorine pesticides,  European starlings alert us to the harmful effects of organophosphates.   The studies of these birds demonstrate the harmful effects on wildlife. In 1973 I was a student of Zoology at Manchester University.   For my very first assignment, my tutor gave me the name of a species,  the peregrine falcon,  Falco perigranus, and a set of dates, and asked me to do some research in the library and write a short report. During the 1940s and 1950s, Derrick Ratcliff of the British Nature Conservancy noted a sharp decline in peregrine falcons across Europe. Soon after this observation correlations between eggs...

How would you react if your neighbour told you he was going to spray his garden with a neurotoxin used in WW2? "Oh don't worry!" he assures you, "it's only a low dose!" "A neurotoxin?" you ask incredulously "Are you crazy?" "It's very effective!" he asserts. "How does it work?" you ask. "It stops the pests' brains working" he asserts with a smile.  "Everyone uses it." "But..." Campaigners in the USA hope  that with Scott Pruitt’s resignation, and with a new administrator Andrew Wheeler at the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this presents another chance to apply pressure and achieve a national ban in the United States on the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos once and for all. Photo by Elle Dunn Organophosphate insecticides, such as diazinon, chlorpyrifos, disulfoton, azinphos-methyl, and fonofos, have been used widely in agriculture and in...