Perspective on Dietary Risk Assessment of Pesticide Residues in Organic Food

Previous studies have shown that organically produced food has lower risks of pesticide contamination than food that is not organically produced. However, organically produced food is not entirely free of pesticide residues. A large, high-quality U.S. Department of Agriculture database reports pesticide residues in several dozen organic and conventionally grown foods on an annual basis, and supports detailed analyses of the frequency of residues in conventional and organic food, the number of residues found in an average sample of food, residue levels, and potential dietary risk. These data are used to estimate pesticide dietary exposures and relative risk levels, and to assess the impacts of the current pesticide-related provisions of the National Organic Program (NOP) rule. Fraud appears to be rare based on the available data. Most prohibited residues found in organic produce are detected at levels far below the residues typically found in food grown with pesticides. Relatively high-risk residues are more common in imported foods—both organic and conventional—compared to domestically grown food. The authors conclude that incorporating relative dietary risk into the organic standard would be a more precautionary, risk-based approach than targeting enforcement to organic foods found to contain 5% or more of the applicable Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tolerance

Building Effectively Engaged Communities: The Citizen Action Training School Model

One of the key challenges facing the regional Puget Sound recovery effort is the need to get communities engaged in local and regional governmental and regulatory processes to advocate for shoreline and watershed recovery. The Puget Sound area Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups are implementing a new version of an old solution for this problem- the Citizen Action Training School (CATS- see www.rfeg.org/cats), funded for two years by the Puget Sound Partnership. CATS is a Sound-wide training program designed to create community leaders in support of local and regional Puget Sound Recovery efforts. CATS will educate participants about the regulatory process so they can be engaged in their communities to support local watershed and shoreline protection and restoration. The Citizen Action Training School is an intensive program with 12 weeks of class and field instruction, followed by 8-10 weeks spent planning and implementing a service project related to Puget Sound recovery priority actions. In this presentation, we will discuss the unique history of the CATS program, our approach to participant recruitment, curriculum development and implementation, and program evaluation. We believe that CATS represents a model that should be replicated around the Salish Sea- by combining the more standard ecosystem education components with a detailed overview of the regulations and regulatory agencies that manage Puget Sound resources we are teaching the science of the Sound through the lens of the policy that affects shorelines and watersheds. Throughout the curriculum, we stress the opportunities for public involvement in the regulatory process so that our students can walk away with all the tools to be effectively engaged citizens of Puget Sound

Genetically Engineered Crops and Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Nine Years

This report builds on earlier data and analysis funded by the Leopold Center that covered the first eight years of commercial use of genetically engineered crops. More recent reports are available at The Organic Center

Integration of autography, proteasomal degradation, unfolded protein responce and apoptosis

A single cell has the potential to kill an entire human being. Efforts to cure cancer are limited by survival of individual cancer cells despite immune surveillance and toxic therapies. Understanding the intricate network of pathways that maintain cellular homeostasis and mediate stress response or default into cell death is critical to the development of strategies to eradicate cancer. Autophagy, proteasomal degradation and the unfolded protein response (UPR) are cellular pathways that degrade and recycle excess or damaged proteins to maintain cellular homeostasis and survival. This review will discuss autophagy and how it is integrated with proteasomal degradation and UPR to govern cell fate through restoration of cellular homeostasis or default into the apoptotic cell death pathway. The first response of autophagy is macroautophagy, which sequesters cytoplasm including organelles inside double-membraned autophagosome vesicles that fuse with lysosomes to degrade and recycle the contents. Ubiquitination patterns on proteins targeted for degradation determine whether adapter proteins will bring them to developing autophagosomes or to proteasomes. Macroautophagy is followed by chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), in which Hsc70 (Heat shock cognate 70) selectively binds proteins with exposed KFERQ motifs and pushes them inside lysosomes through the LAMP-2A (Lysosome-associated membrane protein type 2A) receptor. These two processes and the lesser understood microautophagy, which involves direct engulfment of proteins into lysosomes, occur at basal and induced levels. Insufficient proteasome function or ER stress induction of UPR can induce autophagy, which can mitigate damage and stress. If this network is incapable of repairing the damage or overcoming continued stress, the default pathway of apoptosis is engaged to destroy the cell. Induction of macroautophagy by cancer therapeutics has led to clinical trials investigating combinations of HCQ (hydroxychloriquine) suppression of autophagy with apoptosis-inducing agents. Further study of the complex integration of autophagy, proteasomal degradation, UPR and apoptosis is likely to provide additional targets for our fight against cancer. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled “Apoptosis: Four Decades Later”

On the Determination of Poisson Statistics for Haystack Radar Observations of Orbital Debris

A convenient and powerful method is used to determine if radar detections of orbital debris are observed according to Poisson statistics. This is done by analyzing the time interval between detection events. For Poisson statistics, the probability distribution of the time interval between events is shown to be an exponential distribution. This distribution is a special case of the Erlang distribution that is used in estimating traffic loads on telecommunication networks. Poisson statistics form the basis of many orbital debris models but the statistical basis of these models has not been clearly demonstrated empirically until now. Interestingly, during the fiscal year 2003 observations with the Haystack radar in a fixed staring mode, there are no statistically significant deviations observed from that expected with Poisson statistics, either independent or dependent of altitude or inclination. One would potentially expect some significant clustering of events in time as a result of satellite breakups, but the presence of Poisson statistics indicates that such debris disperse rapidly with respect to Haystack's very narrow radar beam. An exception to Poisson statistics is observed in the months following the intentional breakup of the Fengyun satellite in January 2007