Category Archives: Pesticides

New Book Helps Protect Children from Environmental Neurotoxins

 

As an investigative journalist who has written extensively about environmental toxins, I was honored to help edit Dr. Gurian’s latest book, The Minds of Girls. Every parent can surely benefit from Dr. Gurian’s chapters about protecting children from the hazards of neurotoxins and excessive screen time/social media, two topics which are especially salient to our ailing modern society.

Dr. Gurian points out that while we must continue to combat harmful gender stereotypes and discrimination, we must also be willing to burst our media bubbles and examine other sources for the alarming increases in depression, anxiety, addiction, and developmental disorders among modern girls. Dr. Gurian demonstrates that one of the chief causes of these maladies are environmental neurotoxins which attack healthy gene expression and can even be passed along epigenetically for multiple generations.

Sadly, these environmental neurotoxins are ubiquitous in our modern environment. They usually originate from pesticides, plastics, heavy metals, and other under-regulated chemicals — often winding up in common foods, drinks, lotions, bottles, toys, etc. While it’s not easy, these chemicals can be avoided with vigilance, and Dr. Gurian provides many tips for helping keep your children as strong and vivacious as nature intended.

The Minds of Girls abounds with wisdom, scientific insight, and old-fashioned common sense. It will arm you with practical and philosophical tools to defend your children. I encourage you to join Dr. Gurian in this courageous conversation.

Saving Our Sons by Dr. Gurian

Why Are Timber Companies Contaminating Our Forests with Toxic Herbicides?

Some may protest my use of the word toxic, but what else should one call a chemical which has been proven to drastically weaken immune systems, alter an amphibian’s gender, mutate rats’ genes for generations, and which was banned by the European Union due to “ubiquitous and unpreventable water contamination?”

The toxic herbicide whose destructive capabilities I’ve just described is known as atrazine, and it is widely sprayed by our state’s timber industry.

We also shouldn’t hesitate calling glyphosate or 2,4-D toxic herbicides. Glyphosate (the main ingredient in Roundup) is known to pollute waterways, strip soils of vital nutrients, and is in the process of being banned by California and the EU. It was also declared “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization in 2015.

Then there’s 2,4-D, best known as half of the infamous Agent Orange defoliant used during the Vietnam War as part of our country’s herbicidal warfare program. 2,4-D is commonly sprayed in forestry and food production settings, and has been linked to endocrine disruption, thyroid disorders, birth defects and cancer.

Read the column in The Nisqually Valley News

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Helicopter spraying toxic herbicides
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Appearance on Northwestern Outdoors Radio

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A mysterious hoof disease is steadily exterminating elk herds throughout Washington and Oregon, and many thousands of hunters, conservationists, and concerned citizens continue to believe that forestry herbicides are causing this horrendous epidemic.

On November 4th, I will join John Kruse, host of Northwestern Outdoors Radio, to explain why the public’s persistent herbicide theory may prove correct after all. The show will air on 60+ stations throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Many thanks to John Kruse for tracking this important issue. Your listeners are lucky to have such a strong outdoors advocate.

Will WSU Study the Link Between Herbicides and Elk Hoof Disease?

I wish my family was getting ready to go elk hunting. I wish we were shopping for supplies, setting up our camp along the Coweeman River, and maybe even doing some scouting on the weekends.

Instead, my dad, my uncle, my brother and the rest of our hunting party are boycotting our Department of Fish and Wildlife and Weyerhaeuser for the fourth consecutive year.

It all began when a pitifully unsuccessful black powder rifle season prompted my family to start attending meetings and asking tough questions about why there were so few healthy elk. What we learned about elk hoof disease was sad, but what we’ve learned about the collusion between certain government agencies and the timber and chemical industries has been truly disturbing.

Read the column in The Chronicle

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Dr. Boone Mora examining disfigured elk hooves
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Appearance on Horns and Hooks Radio

 

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I was honored recently to share my insights into the issue of elk hoof disease with Horns and Hooks listeners throughout the Longview, Aberdeen and Olympia areas. Many thanks to Kelly Barnum, Rex Peterson and Colin Hamilton for having me on the show, but especially for continuing to shed light on this horrendous disease, as well as the way in which certain corporations and landowners appear to be controlling WDFW’s ineffectual response. I only hope that we were able to encourage a few more hunters and conservationists to ask WDFW the tough questions about what they plan to do to save our great elk herds of southwest Washington.

Click on the link below to listen to the entire podcast. And if you want to get right to the issue of elk hoof disease then skip ahead to minute 15:00.

http://www.hornsandhooks.com/2016/01/07/january-9-elk-hoof-rot-gun-control-and-more/


My ongoing investigation of elk hoof disease and toxic forest practices is funded entirely by my readers. If you appreciate my work and believe that journalism should be fearlessly independent of corporate influence, then consider clicking on the donate button below so that I can continue giving these issues the time and attention they deserve. Thank you for your support.