Martin Bourque and Ingrid Bekkers

About the author: Martin Bourque is the Sustainable Agriculture Program Director at Food First, also known as the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Ingrid Bekkers is a former research intern at Food First. Food First is a think tank that works to find the causes and solutions to hunger and poverty.

The use of pesticides in farming creates serious health risks. These ill effects include cancer, liver dysfunction, and abnormalities in the reproductive system. Pesticides cause these problems by disrupting the human body's endocrine and hormone system. The U.S. government ignored these dangers when it passed the Food Quality Protection Act in 1996, which weakens pesticide regulation.

Q: What do androgynous alligators, and dolphin distemper have to do with human breast and prostate cancer"

A: They're all involved in new studies focused...