Spraying pesticides on lettuce in Yuma, Arizona. Photo credit: Jeff Vanuga, Public Domain.

Introduction

This page explores how pesticides and related chemicals impact human health and the planet’s health.

Messages and Resources on Christian Restorative Justice, Environment, and Health

Out of Eden: A Christian Study and Action Guide to Food and the Environment

A practical Study and Action Guide for use by small groups discussion or personal reflection. The guide covers topics that are actionable on the personal and policy levels: sugar’s impact on our bodies and sugar corporations’ truth-telling and accountability, corn and corn subsidies creating over-supply, plastic and its biological impact on animals and humans, the true cost of meat in terms of soil depletion and air pollution, and food waste and the practices which can diminish it.

Other Resources on Pesticides

Ethan A. Huff, Monsanto Connected to at Least 200,000 Suicides in India Throughout Past Decade. Natural News, Jan 4, 2011.

The Institute for Responsible Technology, The Health Dangers of Roundup (Glyphosate. Herbicide. The Institute for Responsible Technology, May 10, 2013. This interview with Jeffrey Smith and Stephanie Seneff is outstanding.

Morgan Korn, How Monsanto Controls the Government. Yahoo Finance, Jul 31, 2013.

Sayer Ji, Sucralose (Splenda) Harms Vastly Underestimated: Baking Releases Dioxin. Dec 2, 2013.

Union of Concerned Scientists, The Rise of Superweeds and What To Do About It. UCSUSA, Dec 2013.

Nick, Facebook and Monsanto are Basically Owned by the Same People. Live Free Live Natural blog, Mar 26, 2014.

Thomas Bohn and Marek Cuhra, How ''Extreme Levels'' of Monsanto's Herbicide Roundup in Food Became the Industry Norm. Truthout, Mar 26, 2014.

Susan Freinkel, Warning Signs: How Pesticides Harm the Young Brain. The Nation, Mar 31, 2014.

EWAO, He Holds the Patent That Could Destroy Monsanto and Change the World! Earth We Are One, Mar 9, 2015.

S.M. Gibson, Lobbyist Claims Monsanto's Roundup Is Safe to Drink, Freaks Out When Offered a Glass. Anti-Media, Mar 26, 2015.

Lorraine Chow, Bill Nye on Glyphosate: ‘We Accidentally Decimated the Monarch Butterfly Population’ EcoWatch, Jul 22, 2015. a Monsanto product

NRDC, The Story of Silent Spring. National Resources Defense Council, Aug 13, 2015. Re: Rachel Carson vs. big chemical companies

Justin Gardner, Monsanto Crops Decimated By Pests – Meanwhile, Nearby Non-GMO Crops Thriving. Natural Blaze, Nov 8, 2015.

Elizabeth Grossman, What Do We Really Know About Roundup Weed Killer? National Geographic, Apr 23, 2015. re: glyphosate

Sustainable Pulse, Monsanto Put on Trial for Crimes Against Humanity in The Hague. Sustainable Pulse, Dec 3, 2015.

Tami Canal, You're Being Lied to About Cancer. March Against Monsanto, Apr 2, 2016.

Reuters, Recall of Monsanto's Roundup Likely As EU Refuses Limited Use of Glyphosate. Guardian, Jun 6, 2016.

Jenny Hopkinson and Giulia Paravicini, How Grassroots Lobbying Push Blindsided Monsanto. Politico EU, Jun 13, 2016.

Kaleigh Rogers, Bayer Just Bought Monsanto, Here's Why You Should Care. MotherBoard, Sep 14, 2016.

Dr. Mercola, Massive Honey Contamination Revealed. Mercola, Nov 15, 2016. About glyphosate

Sharon Lerner, Poison Fruit: Dow Chemical Wants Farmers to Keep Using a Pesticide Linked to Autism and ADHD. The Intercept, Jan 14, 2017. About chlorpyrifos

Sharon Lerner, Environmental Groups Sue EPA to Force Ban of Pesticide Linked to Autism. The Intercept, Apr 5, 2017.

Frederica Perera, The Womb Is No Protection From Toxic Chemicals. New York Times, Jun 1, 2017.

Hagai Levine, Niels Jørgensen, Anderson Martino-Andrade, Jaime Mendiola, Dan Weksler-Derri, Irina Mindlis, Rachel Pinotti, Shanna H Swan, Temporal Trends in Sperm Count: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis. Human Reproduction Update, Jul 2017. Male sperm count in humans is one of the most measurable, concrete metrics to track.

“This comprehensive meta-regression analysis reports a significant decline in sperm counts (as measured by SC and TSC) between 1973 and 2011, driven by a 50–60% decline among men unselected by fertility from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Because of the significant public health implications of these results, research on the causes of this continuing decline is urgently needed.”

See summaries by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Sperm Concentration Has Declined 50 Percent in 40 Years in Three Continents. Washington Post, Jul 25, 2017.

“There have been far fewer sperm studies conducted in non-Western countries. (Some of the most recent ones have also noted a decline in aspects of sperm quality. A study published earlier this year about China's Hunan province found that 56 percent of sperm donations met the criteria for health in 2001 vs. only 18 percent in 2015.)”.

See also Maya Salam, Sperm Count in Western Men Has Dropped Over 50 Percent Since 1973, Paper Finds. New York Times. Salam includes helpful graphs and more detail. In addition,

“A 2005 study, Dr. Swan said, showed that prenatal exposure to phthalates, also called plasticizers, affected the development of sons. Phthalates are a group of chemicals used to make plastics more flexible and harder to break. In several studies over the last two decades, they have been shown to disrupt the operation of male hormones like testosterone and have been linked to genital birth defects in male infants. Dr. Swan, who conducted a 2008 study about phthalate exposure, said that scientists have had the ability to measure exposure to plasticizers only since about 2000, via urine. That has led to a 20-year lag in the process since researchers cannot enroll men to produce sperm until they are in their 20s.”

Emily Stewart, Monsanto Was Just Ordered to Pay $289 Million to a Man Who Says Its Weed Killer Caused His Cancer. Vox, Aug 11, 2018. with thousands of other cases pending

Sharon Lerner, How a Ragtag Group of Oregon Locals Took on the Biggest Chemical Companies in the World - And Won. The Intercept, Sep 15, 2018. Primarily about pesticide companies and toxic chemicals like glyphosate, chlorpyrifos. Lerner also discusses EPA policies.

Four Corners, The Secret Tactics Monsanto Used to Protect Roundup, Its Star Product. ABC Australia, Oct 8, 2018. farmers disproportionately suffer from farmers’ lymphoma

Patricia Cohen, $2 Billion Verdict Against Monsanto Is Third to Find Roundup Caused Cancer. New York Times, May 13, 2019.

Coral Davenport, Trump Removes Pollution Controls on Streams and Wetlands. New York Times, Jan 22, 2020. impacting especially farmers’ use of pesticides

Lisa Friedman, E.P.A. Rejects Its Own Findings That a Pesticide Harms Children’s Brains. New York Times, Sep 23, 2020. “The agency’s new assessment directly contradicts federal scientists’ conclusions five years ago that chlorpyrifos can stunt brain development in young children.”

Elke Branstatter and Marko Rosseler, Is Parkinson’s Disease Related to Pesticide Use? Deutsche Welle Documentary, Sep 26, 2021. “The number of Parkinson's sufferers has doubled since the 1990s. In Germany alone, about 400,000 people have it. Researchers like Bas Bloem of Radboud University in the Netherlands are calling it a pandemic: They say it is the fastest growing neurological disease in the world, and is mainly caused by environmental factors. Heavily industrialized countries are particularly affected, as numerous chemicals find their way into the environment. Despite more and more studies showing increased risks among agricultural workers and gardeners, Parkinson's is not yet considered an occupational disease in Germany. But in France, things are different. Sylvie Berger is from Bordelais, one of Europe's major wine-growing regions. Particularly high amounts of pesticides are used there, and Sylvie Berger, who worked in viticulture, now suffers from Parkinson's. If she receives an occupational disability pension, then why not the gardener Ulrich Elixmann from Germany?”

BBC Reel, Fertility Crisis: Is Modern Life Making Men Infertile? BBC Reel, Mar 5, 2022. Chemicals made by industry are negatively affecting human fertility.

Leeja Miller, Our Food Is Killing Us. Leeja Miller, May 10, 2023. Monsanto’s chemical glyphosate, the key ingredient of Roundup. Monsanto regularly lobbied the EPA to prevent the label “likely carcinogenic.”

Lois Parshley, Toxic Harvest. The Lever, Jul 25, 2024. New research finds pesticides may be as bad for you as smoking — so why is Congress poised to shield the industry from liability?

Helen Santoro, The Trump Administration Is Deregulating Forever Chemicals. Jacobin Magazine, Nov 28, 2025. Re: PFAS, which are used in pesticides.

Stacey Colino, Sperm Counts Worldwide Are Plummeting Faster Than We Thought. National Geographic, Nov 15, 2022.

“Five years ago, a study describing a precipitous decline in sperm counts sparked extreme concerns that humanity was on the path to extinction. Now a new study shows that sperm counts have fallen further and the rate of decline is speeding up, raising fears of a looming global fertility crisis.
The initial study, published in July 2017, revealed that sperm counts—the number of sperm in a single ejaculate—plummeted by more than 50 percent among men in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand between 1973 and 2011. Since then, a team led by the same researchers has explored what has happened in the last 10 years. In a new meta-analysis, which appears today in the journal Human Reproduction Update, researchers analyzed studies of semen samples published between 2014 and 2019 and added this to their previous data. The newer studies have a more global perspective and involved semen samples from 14,233 men, including some from South and Central America, Africa, and Asia. The upshot: Not only has the decline in total sperm counts continued—reaching a drop of 62 percent—but the decline per year has doubled since 2000.”

Hagai Levine, Niels Jørgensen, Anderson Martino-Andrade, Jaime Mendiola, Dan Weksler-Derri, Irina Mindlis, Rachel Pinotti, Shanna H Swan, Temporal Trends in Sperm Count: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis of Samples Collected Globally in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Human Reproduction Update, Mar 2023. This is significant because the same team did a meta-analysis on Western countries in 2017 (see above). Male sperm count in humans is one of the most measurable, concrete metrics to track. This is a devastating indictment of our “corporations first” policy-making and culture.

“Outcomes: The slope for SC among unselected men was steeper in a model restricted to post-2000 data (-1.73: -3.23 to -0.24; P = 0.024) and the percent decline per year doubled, increasing from 1.16% post-1972 to 2.64% post-2000. Results were similar for TSC, with a 62.3% overall decline among unselected men (-4.70 million/year; -6.56 to -2.83; P < 0.001) in the adjusted meta-regression model. All results changed only minimally in multiple sensitivity analyses.
Wider implications: This analysis is the first to report a decline in sperm count among unselected men from South/Central America-Asia-Africa, in contrast to our previous meta-analysis that was underpowered to examine those continents. Furthermore, data suggest that this world-wide decline is continuing in the 21st century at an accelerated pace. Research on the causes of this continuing decline and actions to prevent further disruption of male reproductive health are urgently needed.”

Pamela Ferdinand, Pesticide Use Around Homes and Farms Linked to Childhood Leukemia, Brain Tumors. U.S. Right to Know, Jun 8, 2026. “Forty years of studies find higher cancer risks among children exposed during pregnancy and early life to pesticides used on farms, lawns, gardens, and pets”