The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "herbicides" ...
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Agent Orange: A Lethal Legacy
This investigation reveals the high costs and consequences of herbicides, such as Agent Orange, used by the US military during the Vietnam War. Not only are the veterans suffering from the consequences of herbicides, but also the children of these veterans. These children suffer from multiple cancers, birth defects, and other conditions. The conditions have increased the financial compensation for the US veterans and their families. Furthermore, the US government has neglected to discover the impact of these herbicides on health and environmental conditions.
Tags: US military; Vietnam War; US government; government; health; birth defects; defoliants; financial compensation; disability; veterans; families; US Department of Veterans Affairs
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EPA Fails to Inform Public About Weed-Killer in Drinking Water
The Environmental Protection Agency kept secret the high level of the herbicide atrazine found in the water supply of communities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kansas. Residents were not alerted and were actually given false water readings from state and local authorities.
Tags: atrazine; environmental protection agency; watershed; water; herbicide; weed-killer; Huffington Post Investigative Fund; drinking; safety; public; health;
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The Price of Research
Doing a broader take on the "frog story", the Chronicle investigates the story of corporate influence in conflict with the values of scientific integrity and independent academic research. The "frog story" goes thus : After being hired by a pesticide manufacturer to study the effect of atrazine on frogs, Tyron Hayes - a Univ. of California professor- began to suspect that the company was trying to suppress his findings because they might threaten the re-approval of the product by the Environmental Protection Agency. After Mr. Hayes broke with his research sponsor, Syngenta, other academic scientists who continued to work for the company attacked his work. Allies of the company from the agriculture industry and critics of the environmental regulation also moved to discredit him.
Tags: herbicide
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Genetically Modified Foods: Are They Safe
The story analyses whether genetically modified crops are an "environmental dream come true" or "disaster in the making." The author looks at the cost to wildlife, in particular the possible hazards that pollen from insect-resistant corn plants poses to the larvae of monarch butterflies. The reporter examines the worries that genes from GM crops may contaminate the surrounding plants. The investigation finds that "U.S. landscape logistics make it unlikely that herbicide-tolerant or Bt crops will spread their biotech genes," but "it might be harder to avoid creating superweeds elsewhere."
Tags: pollen; transgenic crops; Environmental Protection Agency; agriculture; environment; viruses; species
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Plan Columbia
Colombia is now the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world after Israel and Egypt. The two-year, $3.2 billion aid package is to help fight "the war on drugs," by eradicating half of the nation's 300,000 acres of coca fields within five years. Yet others consider the escalating US military presence and its technological aid to the right wing paramilitary forces a thinly veiled military intervention, stabilizing the government in power against guerillas in the coca-producing regions. Kidnappings are up sharply, and others fear they'll increase even more if drugs profits are stymied.
Tags: Columbia; US Aid; War on Drugs; anti-narcotics; School of the Americas; U.S. military advisors; toxic herbicides; Plan Colombia; Pais Libre; kidnapping; FARC; ELN; death squads; human rights; Pentagon's Southern Command; Amnesty International; Paz Colombia; social inequality
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Drug Control or Biowarfare?
"The story unveiled a secret government plan to use Colombia as a testing ground for Fusarium oxysporum, a fungus-based herbicide, as a new biological weapon in the war on drugs; the power and personage behind the effort, and the lack of oversight, monitoring, and informed consent from stakeholders on health and environmental concerns. (The) story detailed how the fungus was initially clandestinely isolated and developed by various government agencies and how the U.S. worked to force the experimental agent on Colombian authorities for use against coca, poppy, and marijuana."
Tags: deforestation; USDA; Peru; fungus; Plan Columbia; Rep. Ben Gilman; mycoherbicide (fungus plant killer); human health; farming; immune system; State Department of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement; Monsanto Roundup; United Nations
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Pandora's Pantry
Mother Jones investigates "the worldwide revolt over gene-altered foods [that] has begun to take root in this country." Critics of genetically engineered, or GE, crops say such food products could "create unexpected new allergens or contaminate products in unanticipated ways, resulting in threats to public health... In addition, many scientists fear that bio-engineered crops could spark widespread ecological damage, creating insecticide-resistant bugs and herbicide-resistant 'superweeds' that would make kudzu and purple look like so many summer dandelions." Mother Jones discovered that the Food and Drug Administration ignored the objections of several scientists concerning the safety of GE foods and products.
Tags: genetic engineering; GE; foods; health; safety; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; gene-altered; bio-engineered crops
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The great gene escape
The seed companies say the plants they've created are safe. But who's to know what will come from a romp in the field with an untamed weed? Discover examines genetically engineered crops that produce high-yield, insect-resistant breeds of corn, soybeans, sorghum and sunflowers..
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Our Children, Their Cancer
On June 23, 1997, state officials in the Department of Health announced an investigation of a cluster of children with rare brain and nerve-cell cancers in St. Lucie County. The Stuart News had identified 17 cases of this type of cancer in St. Lucie County. After six months, health officials said they identifies at least 31 childhood cancer cases. The News has found three others, for a total of 34. The first testing of possible environmental causes is not expected to begin until mid-January. Parents suspect pesticides and herbicides, but officials say finding a cause will be a slow process. Similar investigations have taken years and come up empty.
Tags: cancer; kids; children; toxic spills; pesticide; poisoning; St. Lucie County; herbicides
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No title (id: 10170)
Technology Review describes the promise and problems of crops which are genetically-altered to be herbicide-resistant; finds that advantages are tinged with disadvantages such as the increased use of herbicides to kill unwanted plants like weeds, which leads to increased danger to farmworkers and other animals, and fear that the resistence will spread to other, less desirable plants, May - June 1994.