As Valentine’s Day approaches, millions of people will give flowers as a symbol of love without realizing that those bouquets may be coated in toxic pesticides. Unlike food, flowers are not regulated for pesticide residues, meaning there is no limit to how much poison can be left on a single bouquet, including chemicals banned on food crops. 

Unregulated flowers put farmworkers and florists at serious risk, with exposures linked to cancer, birth defects, and long-term illness. From flower farms in Kenya and Colombia to florist shops in the U.S., workers report devastating health impacts while companies evade accountability. 

Love shouldn’t come at the cost of workers’ lives.

Please sign this alert and tell Congress to begin regulating pesticides on flowers!

When traditions rely on harmful practices, sustainability doesn’t always mean finding a better version of the same thing; sometimes it means opting out. Valentine’s Day offers an opportunity to reimagine what a meaningful gift looks like, especially in places where ethical, organic flowers aren’t available, and the more responsible choice may be to skip flowers entirely in favor of gifts that align with our values.

Choose Valentine’s gifts that reflect care for people, workers, and the planet

READ: “Deaths and Illness from Unregulated Pesticide Residues on Flowers” by Alexis Baden-Mayer

Emily Craig, Telegraph:

“We all know vegetables are good for us, but they aren’t created equal. While they’re all a source of fiber – something the majority of us should be eating more of – as well as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, these compounds are less concentrated in some varieties.

All vegetables are nutritious, says Rhiannon Lambert, a nutritionist, the founder of the top Harley Street clinic Rhitrition and the author of The Science of Plant-Based Nutrition.

While the vegetables we eat have changed through the generations, one thing that has remained the same is their important role in our health. They enhance our immune system and maintain our bones, muscles and organs. ‘Five a day’ is the mantra that has been drilled into us for the last two decades but the consensus is the more, the merrier. Recently, scientists have called for people to aim for 30 different varieties of plant per week (though, admittedly, this includes nuts, seeds and whole grains, as well as vegetables and fruit).

So, if we’re eating fewer vegetables, it’s important to make sure we’re maximizing our nutritional bang for buck. While ‘including as many different types of vegetables in your diet is the goal’, some varieties do come up trumps, Lambert explains. Red, orange, and yellow vegetables are high in vitamins A and C, while dark greens contain iron and folate, but those with a high water content – cucumber, marrow and cabbage – offer fewer nutrients.”

Here’s Lambert’s pick of the most nutritious veg

Our home state of Minnesota is ground zero for immigration enforcement that is becoming more secretive, violent, and unaccountable every day. We all need to blow our whistles and contact Congress now to preserve the remaining shreds of our democracy. Public pressure works and making our voices heard can help protect our neighbors and uphold basic civil rights.

Regardless of anyone’s position on immigration, we should be able to agree on this: every human being deserves dignity, humane treatment, and due process under the law.

Last year, Congress increased ICE funding by $170 billion, paying for it with cuts to health care and food stamps. This week, as the Senate votes on spending bills, tell Congress to put the money back where it belongs.

Without constituents taking action Congress may approve even more funding for these agencies with no meaningful safeguards, allowing abuse, secrecy, and civil rights violations to continue unchecked. Our communities demand accountability, transparency, and an end to policies that spread fear and put lives at risk.

We can’t wait while ICE continues to harm people in our communities. Reckless raids, like those happening in Minneapolis and across the country, are tearing apart families, traumatizing children, and putting lives at risk. 

Congress has the power and responsibility to stop this escalation by opposing any bill that adds to ICE’s already massive budget and by demanding an end to violent, unaccountable enforcement operations.

Signing this alert and contacting Congress sends a clear message: our communities refuse to accept abuse, secrecy, and fear as the cost of immigration enforcement. Lawmakers must act now to rein in ICE, end harmful raids, and hold the agency accountable before more people are hurt or killed.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Stop the ICE Escalation!

Ally Hirschlag & Martha Henriques, BBC:

“If you take a closer look around your kitchen, you’ll start to recognize where microplastics enter our meals: they flake off the spatula you use to cook breakfast, leak from the plastic water bottle you put in your child’s backpack and float in the cup of tea on your desk. They’re also buried deep within the foods we eat, from hamburgers to honey.

Once you start looking for them, the exposure points for microplastics can quickly feel overwhelming. But, importantly, it is also possible to make changes to reduce the amount of microplastics we are exposed to in our kitchens.

‘There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit in your house that’s really easy to address,’ says Sheela Sathyanarayana, a professor of pediatrics and adjunct professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute. ‘I do feel like it gives people a sense of control over their own lives, and we do have that a little bit more than we might think.'”

Learn more

Next time you buy flowers, remember the workers behind the flowers and the communities affected by toxic pesticides.

The flowers in your bouquet may be coated in chemicals that put farmworkers and florists at risk of serious health problems, including cancer and birth defects.

Meanwhile, corporations like Bayer are fighting to avoid accountability for the harm caused by their products.

The Supreme Court is considering a case that could determine whether families and communities poisoned by toxic pesticides can hold manufacturers accountable. If Bayer succeeds in its bid for liability protection, victims may be left without recourse or compensation.

Take action with us:

• Tell Congress to regulate pesticides on flowers and protect workers’ health
• Demand that the Supreme Court uphold the right to hold pesticide manufacturers accountable
• Urge your state to ban glyphosate and support the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act

And please consider making a donation to help us spread the word and hold corporations accountable for the harms they cause.

Your support matters. By donating to the Organic Consumers Association, you’re helping to protect public health and support workers’ rights as well as helping us advocate for organic regenerative farming and food, educate consumers and give citizens the opportunity to make their voice heard!

Together, we can make a difference and create a more just and healthy food system.

Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

Make a tax-deductible donation to Regeneration International, our international sister organization

Have you considered making a gift from your IRA?

Lee Evslin writes for The New Lede:

“For months leading up to the 2024 election, the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA) movement captivated a nation overwhelmed by chronic diseases. I found hope in a powerful promise regarding our food supply: we would finally stop poisoning our own people.

We were told that the new administration would take a sledgehammer to the corrupt alliance between federal regulators and the chemical industry. We were promised a war on the health epidemic that is sickening our children.

The MAHA vote in 2024 was a cry for help. It was a demand for regenerative farming, for the removal of toxic chemicals, and for a government that feared parents more than it feared lobbyists.

Instead, the movement has been hijacked. The final MAHA policy drafts barely mention pesticides. The administration is asking the Supreme Court to shield Bayer using fraudulent science. And the ‘health’ movement is being used to entrench a system where regulatory agencies ignore 21st-century medicine to protect 20th-century profits.

I believed they were addressing one of the most important public health issues of our times. But that critical mission has been co-opted and corrupted by industrial forces far more powerful than the movement itself.”

Learn more

The Supreme Court is considering a case that could determine whether families, workers, and communities poisoned by toxic pesticides will retain the ability to hold manufacturers accountable.

If the Court rules in favor of Bayer in Monsanto v. Durnell, pesticide producers could be shielded from failure-to-warn lawsuits, leaving many victims without recourse or compensation.

In 2025, two states, Georgia and North Dakota, took the right to sue away from plaintiffs claiming agricultural chemicals caused deaths or illnesses.

The pesticide companies are lobbying the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Environmental Protection Agency to give them a nationwide liability shield.

In the meantime, they’re going state-by-state. So far in 2026, Bayer (Monsanto) has bills in Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

If these bills become law, they would block justice for anyone killed or injured by any of the 57,000 pesticides approved for any use in the U.S. today, not just those used on farms.

People must retain the right to seek justice when they are sickened or killed by toxic pesticides. With the executive branch and state officials failing to protect the public. Congress must act. Children and young people, whose cancer rates are rising fastest, depend on it. We must also urge our Legislators to oppose efforts to help Bayer escape liability for deaths and injuries.

The suffering of Americans who have developed cancer due to exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide must be addressed.

Tell Congress to Pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act!

Tell Your State to Ban Glyphosate, Not Bail Out Bayer!

What’s Up Media:

“On January 1, 2026, a new rule took effect in Washington state banning all bisphenols in receipt paper, prioritizing the health of people and safer solutions. This makes Washington the first state in the nation to take this action. 

Millions of people handle receipts every day from restaurants, retailers, and pharmacies. This has been a hidden source of exposure to bisphenols. These chemicals even rub off onto money. Cashiers and other retail workers face especially high risks, because the chemicals transfer from paper to skin. The new rules, adopted under the state’s Safer Products law, applies to thermal receipt paper, as well as thermal paper used for tickets and labels.

‘This is what health-protective policy looks like,’ said Cheri Peele, director of government and market policy at Toxic-Free Future. By banning all bisphenols in receipts, Washington is putting people’s health first and stopping toxic chemicals before they reach workers’ hands and families’ homes.

A 2023 study by Michigan-based nonprofit Ecology Center found bisphenols in 80% of paper receipts from large retailers—which actually represented a significant decline from 2017, when researchers found bisphenols in 93% of receipts.”

The state determined there are safer alternatives available—and that we don’t have to accept outdated harmful chemicals as the cost of doing business

by Stacey Leasca, Food & Wine:

“Elderberry is known for its tart flavor, similar to a blackberry at peak ripeness. It’s fantastic in salads and an excellent pairing with figs. And, as one new study explains, it may also one day help people reverse insulin resistance.

In December, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic published their study’s findings in the journal Molecular Metabolism, explaining how the tiny elderberry may hold significant powers.

According to the researchers, the key player is cinnamic acid, a compound found in elderberry extract (and other fruits like tart cherries). In the study, mice were fed a high-fat diet with or without elderberry extract. When the animals that consumed the elderberry extract had a normal gut microbiome, a common gut bacterium, Clostridium sporogenes, converted cinnamic acid into a metabolite that helps break down food into energy and is transported from the intestines to the liver. Once there, the team said, it ‘activates pathways that improve insulin control and reduce fat creation.’”

Elderberry extract appeared to help blunt signs of insulin resistance and fatty liver

by Karen Feldscher, Harvard School of Public Health:

“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will scrap its longstanding practice of calculating the economic benefits related to human health when it sets air pollution limits, according to a recently published rule. Instead, it will only consider the economic costs to industry.

Experts quoted in the media describe the change as worrisome, saying that it could lead to higher levels of air pollution and more sickness and deaths among Americans.

‘I’m worried about what this could mean for health,’ said Mary Rice, Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Respiratory Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in a Jan. 13 NPR article. ‘Especially for people with chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma and COPD, for kids whose lungs are still developing, and for older people, who are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of air pollution on the heart, lungs and the brain.’

The article noted that fine particulate pollution, or PM2.5, most of which is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and vehicles, poses serious health risks.”

Numerous studies have linked long-term exposure to this type of pollution with problems such as higher asthma rates, more heart attacks, and more dementia—as well as premature death

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