The Department of Health and Human Services is putting $200 million into studying the impact of "cumulative chemical exposures" and reducing reliance on "chemical crop protection tools."
In a news release, HHS said the National Institutes of Health will spend $100 million on a “grand prize challenge” for researchers “to identify creative solutions for evaluating the exposure, diagnosis, and treatments of cumulative chemical exposures on individual health.”
Another $100 million will come from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health “to identify new and innovative and cost-effective technologies that reduce reliance on chemical crop protection tools in order to improve human health, including the health of farmers.”
Examples include “electrothermal and electrical weeding technologies, robotic weeding systems, precision mechanical weed control, thermal weed control, biological and non-toxic herbicides, mulching systems, and integrated systems,” the department said.
The same announcement said USDA would devote $140 million, on top of $700 million already pledged for regenerative agriculture projects, to support “new uses and markets of agricultural products, innovative solutions to pests and diseases of plants or animals, and combating food and diet-related chronic diseases.”
In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency will provide $30 million for another grand prize challenge, this on “cost-effective alternatives to pre-harvest desiccation use of pesticides, which is a potential contributor to human exposure. This challenge will lead to reduced usage of pesticides while providing new innovative tools for farmers to use.”
The department had already announced $700 million in funding for regenerative agriculture projects split between the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program.
The announcement comes on the heels of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.deides Kennedy Jr.’s backing of an executive order emphasizing the importance of domestic production of glyphosate. Kennedy and the MAHA movement claim the active ingredient in Roundup is a carcinogen, a conclusion EPA and other regulatory bodies have not reached.
Calley Means, a senior adviser at HHS, said at a MAHA rally in Austin, Texas, Thursday that “this glyphosate thing is extremely disappointing. Bobby was disappointed.”
The same day, he posted on X, “Rome wasn’t built in a day. Trust Trump. Trust RFK. They’ve delivered change we couldn’t have imagined 2 years ago - and they deserve time and trust.”
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