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‘Enough Is Enough’: Ralliers Gather Outside Driscoll’s to Demand End to Pesticide Use
Throughout much of 2025, different environmental health groups focused a lot of their energy on stopping the use of pesticides in the Pajaro Valley. These ranged from rallies to presentations of studies to hunger strikes. A lot of the attention has been placed on Driscoll’s, the Watsonville-headquartered corporation that is the largest berry company in the world. On Wednesday, a press conference was held across the street from the company’s headquarters to urge Driscoll’s to stop spraying organophosphates near schools.
The spirit of the conference was summed up in its name: “Enough is Enough.”
Driscoll’s partners with more than 900 independent farmers to grow its berries, which are sold throughout the United States and more than 40 other countries. While Driscoll’s sells a line of organic berries, many of its berries are grown in fields that still have pesticides sprayed, although the company has said its pesticide use is done in adherence to the guidelines of the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration and other agencies.
For years, activists have pointed the blame at pesticides for the elevated rates of childhood cancer in Santa Cruz County, which ranked fourth among pediatric cancer incidence rates for children under 15 from 2018 to 2022, per the National Cancer Institute. However, Driscoll’s pointed to a June study from the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency with input from the University of California San Francisco’s Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry and the California Department of Public Health’s California Cancer Registry, which found that childhood cancer rates in the county were not significantly higher than rates seen throughout California.
Indoor Air Pollution and Tobacco Smoke: Risks for Unborn Babies Revealed by UCT Study
Pregnant women exposed to indoor air pollution and tobacco smoke are placing their unborn babies at severe risk of premature birth, dangerously low birth weight, and acute breathing difficulties, groundbreaking new research has revealed. A landmark study conducted by pediatricians at the University of Cape Town (UCT) has laid bare the devastating toll that poor household air quality inflicts on newborns.
Analysing data from 1,143 live births within the Drakenstein Child Health Study — one of Africa’s largest birth cohorts — scientists discovered that 17% of babies were born prematurely, 15% suffered from low birth weight, and seven per cent experienced immediate respiratory distress at birth.
Crucially, the research proved that infants exposed to high levels of coarse particulate matter whilst in the womb were nearly twice as likely to suffer from respiratory distress, whilst elevated carbon monoxide levels trended towards more than doubling the odds of a newborn suffocating at birth. Furthermore,active maternal smoking was directly linked to significantly lower birth weights in newborns.
Lululemon Is Being Investigated for PFAS in Their Activewear. Here’s What It Means for Your Health.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are found pretty much everywhere. Known as “forever chemicals” because they take an extremely long time to break down, they’re in our drinking water, food packaging, cookware, and waterproof clothing.
Aside from being abundant, they can also be harmful; PFAS have been linked to an increased cancer risk and interference with the body’s immune and reproductive systems, per the Environmental Protection Agency. Naturally, you may want to avoid them. But what happens when you find out your go-to leggings may have PFAS in them?
Recently, the Texas Attorney General announced it was investigating Lululemon for allegedly including PFAS in their activewear, violating the state’s laws. (For the record: Lululemon states that their products do not use PFAS.) Still, as I sit here in a Lululemon sports bra, I have the same question as many of the brand’s devotees: What do PFAS in activewear really mean for my health?
New Report Finds Few Sunscreens Meet Safety Standards
It’s time to stock up on sunscreen, but few choices on store shelves today are both safe and effective, according to an annual report by the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, a nonprofit health and environmental advocacy organization. Now in its 20th year, EWG’s 2026 Guide to Sunscreens analyzed 2,990 products and found only 597 — about 20% — deliver safe and effective protection against the harmful rays of the sun.
The new guide, released May 19, lists the best baby and child sunscreens, including those which are a good “bang for the buck” and the top recreational sunscreens designed for outdoor activities such as sports or spending time at the beach. In addition, consumers can find top-rated daily use sunscreens, including moisturizers with sun protection factor (SPF) and the best lip balms with SPF in the report.
To be recommended by EWG, sunscreens must protect against both UVA and UVB, two types of ultraviolet rays known to damage DNA and age the skin. Due to inhalation risks, sprays and powders are not included. Manufacturers cannot claim over 50+ SPF or use federally banned marketing claims such as “waterproof.” Consumers are often drawn to more expensive products that reach SPF levels of up to 100+, which claim to block 99% of UVB rays. Yet there’s little difference in effectiveness — a cheaper 50+ SPF sunscreen can block 98% of rays, according to the report.
For some products, SPF numbers may also be inflated. A peer-reviewed study by EWG scientists found, on average, sunscreens provided only a quarter of the UVA protection and 59% of the UVB protection stated on the labels.
U.S. Plastic Exports to China Fuel Global Pollution Concerns
As global concern over plastic pollution intensifies, a growing share of the problem is tied not to where waste is discarded, but where it begins — with the United States emerging as a major exporter of the raw materials that fuel plastic production in China and beyond.
At the center of that shift is Texas, now a premier hub for petrochemical exports, shipping billions of dollars’ worth of ethane and plastic resins across the Pacific each year. In 2025 alone, U.S. plastics exports to China exceeded $23 billion, underscoring the scale of a trade that is increasingly drawing scrutiny from environmental analysts and policymakers.
The dynamic highlights a widening disconnect in global supply chains. While the United States produces and exports the building blocks of plastic, much of the environmental burden associated with its use — and disposal — is borne elsewhere.
Next-Generation Pesticide Disrupts Bumblebee Reproduction
Bumblebees are only an inch long, but they help power the global food system. Roughly one-third of the food we grow depends on pollinators like bees — and those bees are regularly decimated by pesticides.
Modern pesticides have helped boost crop yields, but they can also harm the insects that make those yields possible. Sulfoxaflor, a next-generation pesticide introduced in 2013, kills sap-feeding pests like aphids in crops, including soybeans and corn. Sulfoxaflor is also known to be toxic to bees. Scientists are still working to understand how low-dose exposure affects bee reproduction at the molecular level.
Researchers at Georgia Tech have found that sulfoxaflor disrupts reproduction and gene expression. In a study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the team exposed groups of worker bumblebees to low doses of the pesticide and analyzed changes in gene activity. They found that ovarian tissues showed the most significant shifts in gene expression. These changes could contribute to reduced reproductive output and, over time, affect bee populations.
