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Whistleblower Alleges Millions of Driscoll’s Berries Sent to Canada With Excess Chemical Levels
Driscoll’s berries are on many Canadians’ plates and all over Canadian grocery stores, with their tagline claiming to be “only the finest berries.” But a whistleblower lawsuit in California alleges the finest berries were not sent to Canada: instead, millions of pounds of fruit containing non-compliant levels of pesticides and chemicals crossed the border, and the company tried to cover it up.
California resident and former Driscoll’s employee David Harada claims in the lawsuit that by Driscoll’s own estimates, about 50 per cent of all shipments to Canada from 2022 to 2024 had fruit that exceeded Canadian safety levels. “And it’s something where you start seeing it so regularly and you know that something’s not right that you have to speak up,” Harada said in an interview with CBC News.
Harada was Driscoll’s manager of food safety and regulatory compliance for the U.S. and Canada. He filed a lawsuit for unlawful retaliation against Driscoll’s. In the lawsuit’s filing, Harada said he felt that he was being set up to be the “scapegoat” for compliance issues and that he was being retaliated against for speaking up.
Pesticide Linked to Cancer and Hormone Disruption Pollutes a Quarter of US River Miles
A cancer-linked pesticide banned in more than 60 countries around the world contaminates an estimated 25% of river and stream miles in the lower 48 US states, including many waterways used for drinking water, according to a new analysis.
The analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity builds on evidence that atrazine — which is commonly used to grow corn, soybeans, sorghum and sugarcane and is linked to dangerous health problems for people and wildlife — remains ubiquitous in US waterways, especially in farming states.
“It’s just an astounding level of contamination from just one pesticide,” said Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The findings come as the Trump administration re-evaluates atrazine’s registration and signals its support for continued use, including by dismissing research by international cancer experts on links between cancer and atrazine late last year.
Great Waste in the Great Lakes: How Plastic Pollution Is Clogging Our Waters
More than 40 million people in the United States and Canada depend on the Great Lakes for drinking water. Each glass of treated lake water is laden with tiny bits of plastic — microplastics — made of toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases. Also contaminated are fish, staples of Midwestern fish fries and fish boils, and an important part of the diet of Indigenous tribes, certain immigrant populations and communities of color.
Yet this pollution isn’t regulated, and manufacturers are moving to dramatically increase the amount of plastics produced in the United States. The Chicago Tribune is exploring the plastics dilemma with a focus on the Great Lakes, the world’s largest source of fresh surface water. When confronted about their pollution, industry executives often have blamed consumers, using tactics borrowed from and shared with Big Tobacco, according to a Tribune review of thousands of government, scientific and internal industry documents.
This coverage, supported by the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. initiative, will delve into the spread of plastic waste in the Great Lakes, research into health hazards and possible solutions.
Are There Toxic Chemicals in Your Grocery Store Receipt?
“Would you like your receipt?” It’s a question you’re likely to hear every time you pop into the grocery store or stop for a latte on the way to work. Some people may also have heard warnings that have circulated for more than 15 years that if you say yes, toxic chemicals might rub off on your fingertips.
As a recent example, a 2025 study from the Center for Environmental Health, a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on toxic chemicals in consumer products, claimed that holding a paper receipt for only 10 seconds could result in exposure to unsafe levels of toxic chemicals. Could something so commonplace really be slowly poisoning people?
I am a medical toxicologist — a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of poisoning. I see patients in my clinic for everything from severe lead poisoning to questions about exposure to chemicals that are mostly harmless.
Receipts are printed on a special type of paper — thermal paper — which often contains chemicals called bisphenols. These chemicals are potentially — but not necessarily — toxic. So, like many questions in toxicology, the answer to whether receipts are dangerous to handle is: It depends.
‘Are These Chemicals in My Blood?’ How One Community Learned the Truth About PFAS Pollution
Last February, I got a call from a woman called Sam Hammond. We had been speaking on and off for a while over her growing concern that her garden could be affected by pollution from a nearby chemical plant. That morning, Sam had been hand-delivered a letter from her council informing her that her pet ducks’ eggs, reared in her garden, were contaminated with Pfas chemicals.
“Are these chemicals in my blood?” she asked me at the time. Seven months later, Sam has an answer to that question. Pfas are a group of thousands of synthetic compounds known as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment.
In 2024, Wyre borough council and the Environment Agency launched an investigation into contamination of one type of Pfas — Pfoa, a group 1 carcinogen that was globally banned in 2020 — in the vicinity of the AGC Chemicals Europe factory in Thornton-Cleveleys, a town to the north of Blackpool.
Pfoa was emitted in huge quantities from the AGC Chemicals factory up until 2012.
The level of Pfas in one of Sam’s duck eggs was so high that if she ate just one a week, she would exceed the European safe level 10 times over. Sam and her children had been eating these eggs every day for decades.
Newsom Signs Bill to Identify, Track Use of PFAS Pesticides
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation Sunday requiring the state to track and publicly release PFAS pesticide use information. The bill, AB 1603, requires the California Department of Pesticide Regulation by Jan. 1, 2028, to publish a list of registered pesticides containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and describe statewide use trends.
The legislation was prompted by concerns about public health and environmental threats posed by PFAS exposure; the US Environmental Protection Agency’s reported approval of 70 pesticides with PFAS; and an environmental group’s analysis that found 2.5 million pounds of active ingredient PFAS pesticides are applied to California crops each year.
However, Croplife America, which represents the pesticide industry, says the legislation is unnecessary and would impose needless new reporting requirements on the department.
Feds Find Tijuana River Pollution Poses Public Health Hazard in San Diego
A report on the Tijuana River pollution crisis from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Sept. 23 confirmed what many people living in San Diego County have long suspected: Air pollution from the river has reached levels capable of harming their health.
The federal health assessment from the department’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found residents may experience headaches, nausea and respiratory congestion, among other symptoms, as a result of a high concentration of hydrogen sulfide coming from the Tijuana River.
Residents in San Diego’s South Bay have complained of sulfurous odor in the area for years, which has worsened as the city of Tijuana’s infrastructure has been unable to match its unprecedented growth.
The agency found hydrogen sulfide levels exceeded the odor threshold of .5 parts per billion at all four Tijuana River Valley air quality monitoring sites in 93% of its 30-minute samples. In one instance, a 30-minute average of hydrogen sulfide at its Leon Avenue monitoring station reached a high of 3,021 ppb in September 2024, far above the 2,000-ppb level associated with health effects in humans.
