Pesticides

LAS VEGAS - In the land of casinos, it may be jarring at first to see a small box-like robot creeps across the floor as it stops, readies itself and catapults about 30 feet into the air. Nearby, a basketball-sized drone with whirling rotors hovers 5 feet above the floor. Walk a little farther, and there is a large water tank with an underwater robot darting from side to side. Welcome to the Assn. of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's North America trade show, an increasingly diverse collection of unmanned technology.

Los Angeles County bus drivers say they are regularly becoming ill - sometimes while behind the wheel - from pesticides sprayed inside their vehicles by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. At least 14 Metro drivers are pursuing workers' compensation claims, and more than 110 have signed a petition that demands a halt to the spraying, according to their attorney. Some operators are on medical leave, and a few say they have left Metro because of repeated exposure. "You can be driving your bus and get hit with the symptoms," said Frank Portillo, a 23-year coach operator who retired in March, sooner than planned, because of medical issues he believes are pesticide related.

Most of us consume milk. We put it on cereal and add it to coffee. We give it to our children by the glassful to build up their bones. Women are encouraged to drink it throughout adulthood to maintain those bones. We select this milk from an ever-expanding range. Milk comes in whole, reduced-fat, low-fat and no-fat versions. We have organic milk and milk labeled as coming from farms that do not use hormones. But to Northern Californian dairy farmer Ron Garthwaite, these milks aren't milk at all.

Although honeybee loss slowed last year, it remains at dangerously high levels, according to a new federal report that concluded there was no single remedy for the colony collapse that has hit America's hard-working crop pollinators. The report, released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, attributed the colony decline to a number of factors, including pesticide exposure, parasites and poor nutrition. Since 2006, when colony collapse disorder emerged, an estimated 10 million bee hives, worth about $2 billion, have been lost.

Monthly preventive sprayings and dustings for cockroaches and ants are among the pest control industry's biggest businesses. Experts agree that ridding homes and restaurants of cockroaches would cut down the incidence of food poisoning. "If (cockroaches) were to walk over a sewer or over a dead animal, and they were to walk into your house, they would carry certain organisms" on their feet, said Frank Hall, a vermin expert with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

Read the comments of the president of California Citrus Mutual (letter, June 5). Farmers still defend the use of pesticides and soil chemicals, but the fact remains that they are hazardous! Consumers are becoming increasingly health and safety conscious and want no risks! No one knows each person's tolerance level, or how much poison he actually consumes each day. The intelligent decision is to avoid pesticide consumption! ELSA COSLETT Woodland Hills

New research pointing to a possible link between pesticides and Parkinson's disease validates citizens' concern that we examine with greater care any chemical that is released into our atmosphere--especially near our homes, schools and workplaces. Our young people in Ventura County are extremely vulnerable, with active agricultural fields right up to the borders of school grounds. In the case of Rio Mesa High School, the Environmental Working Group states that more than 100,000 pounds of pesticides prohibited from use in organic farming were used within 1 1/2 miles of the school in 1995--and the chemical use is increasing at an alarming rate.

The plight of bees is headed to a courtroom. A coalition of beekeepers, environmentalists and consumer groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency this week, contending the agency has not done enough to protect bees from pesticides, which they say are linked to the increasing bee-colony collapse problem. The suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety, says the class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids are improperly regulated. The group calls for halting the use of the  pesticide until more is known about the effects on bees and other pollinators.

In an effort to protect endangered and threatened Pacific salmon, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new limits Friday on three pesticides that are commonly used on Western farms. The restrictions apply to the use of chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion near salmon waters in Washington, California, Oregon and Idaho. The chemicals have been found by the U.S. Geological Survey to interfere with salmon's sense of smell, making it harder for them to find food, avoid predators and return to native waters to spawn, according to federal biologists.

The unraveling of multimillion-dollar Los Angeles cases alleging that Nicaraguan men had been sterilized by pesticide exposure is now threatening to upend hundreds of other claims in U.S. courts, as judges examine charges that plaintiffs' lawyers orchestrated an extraordinary international fraud. At the center of the claims is the pesticide DBCP and allegations that workers in banana plantations in Central America and Africa were harmed by exposure to the chemical.

The European Commission will tightly restrict for two years the use of pesticides suspected of harming bees, despite opposition from some of the 27 countries that make up the European Union. The European Commission, the EU's governing body, announced the decision Monday after member countries deadlocked on whether to impose a ban. Starting in December, three kinds of pesticides will be largely off limits for crops that are attractive to bees. The bee population in Western Europe and North America has dwindled over the last decade, causing alarm about the potential ecological and economic fallout if crops and wild plants are not pollinated.

The plight of bees is headed to a courtroom. A coalition of beekeepers, environmentalists and consumer groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency this week, contending the agency has not done enough to protect bees from pesticides, which they say are linked to the increasing bee-colony collapse problem. The suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety, says the class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids are improperly regulated. The group calls for halting the use of the  pesticide until more is known about the effects on bees and other pollinators.

I thought I'd be first in line to vote yes on Proposition 37, which would require labels on (most) food that contains genetically modified ingredients. But the closer we get to election day, the more conflicted I feel. Of course transparency matters. If I had my choice, there would be labels on everything, starting with canned food . To say that it's outrageous that we live in a country where food that has been soaked in pesticides or pumped full of antibiotics and hormones is allowed to be sold to consumers would be an understatement.

To the naked eye, the white puffs of cotton growing on shrubs, the yellow flowers on canola plants and the towering tassels on cornstalks look just like those on any other plants. But inside their cells, where their DNA contains instructions for how these crops should grow, there are a few genes that were put there not by Mother Nature but by scientists in a lab. Some of the genes are from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis that makes proteins lethal to flies, moths and other insects.

A Stanford University study, published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine , that analyzed organic and conventional produce is already generating quite a bit of comment from all sides. Though no single study can ever be regarded as conclusive, this one raises some very interesting points (you need a subscription to read beyond the summary). The main points, as related in our sister blog Booster Shots , are: 1) Organic produce does not seem to be significantly higher in nutrients than conventionally grown.

HOUSTON -- In a move to stop a deadly outbreak of the West Nile virus carried by mosquitoes, aerial pesticide spraying was set to begin Thursday night over wide swaths of Dallas County, prompting debate among some residents about safety. The decision to arm small planes with a pesticide that officials said posed no health risks came as Texas grappled with 465 West Nile infections and 17 deaths. The outbreak led officials in Dallas city and county, the hardest hit region in the state, to recently declare a state of emergency.

LAS VEGAS - In the land of casinos, it may be jarring at first to see a small box-like robot creeps across the floor as it stops, readies itself and catapults about 30 feet into the air. Nearby, a basketball-sized drone with whirling rotors hovers 5 feet above the floor. Walk a little farther, and there is a large water tank with an underwater robot darting from side to side. Welcome to the Assn. of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's North America trade show, an increasingly diverse collection of unmanned technology.

As quests go, the one Thousand Oaks garden designer David Snow embarked on is a doozy. For six months, Snow has devoted himself to saving the reputation of America's most beloved butterfly by getting the world's largest maker of pesticides to change its ways. Specifically, Snow wants Ortho to change the labels on its "Bug-B-Gon" and "Flower, Fruit and Vegetable Insect Killer" so they no longer feature images of the striking monarch butterfly caterpillar under the ominous vow, "guaranteed results.