Tag: dangerous

On December 26, 2004, a 9.1 magnitude undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra triggered a massive tsunami that struck 14 countries. It killed approximately 227,898 people, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. The disaster prompted the largest humanitarian aid response ever seen.

Clover Hill Dairy, LLC of Mechanicsville, Maryland recalled its full range of soft and hard cheeses — including requesón, cuajada, and multiple hard cheese varieties — after FDA and CDC investigators linked the products to a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak spanning several years. As of June 24, 2026, 12 people across 4 states had been confirmed infected with the outbreak strain, 10 of whom were hospitalized and one of whom died in Maryland. Listeria is especially dangerous for pregnant women, newborns, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems, for whom infection can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, sepsis, or death. The recall was expanded on June 18, 2026 to cover every cheese product manufactured at the facility after continued positive environmental samples.

Raw ground beef kofta produced by Olympia Food Industries (doing business as Olympia Foods) in Franklin Park, Illinois and served at The Kebab Shop restaurant locations was confirmed via whole genome sequencing on June 1, 2026 to match an outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 that sickened at least 9 people in California, six of them children. Two of the affected children developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening form of kidney failure. The product was made on January 6, 2026 and distributed to Kebab Shop locations in California, Texas, and Florida. The Kebab Shop pulled beef kofta from all of its menus on May 18, 2026, and FSIS issued a public health alert on May 24 rather than a formal recall because the product was already out of commerce.

Paraquat is one of the world's most widely used herbicides and one of its most acutely toxic — a small sip can be fatal, and there is no antidote. Long-term exposure has been linked in a growing body of scientific literature to Parkinson's disease, and as of July 2026 there were roughly 1,952 plaintiffs in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas and 6,665 cases consolidated in the federal multidistrict litigation against manufacturer Syngenta, alleging the company knew of the Parkinson's risk for decades and failed to warn users. Paraquat is banned in more than 30 countries, including the entire European Union and China, but remains legal for licensed applicators in the United States. In March 2026, Syngenta announced it would stop manufacturing paraquat by the end of June 2026, though existing stock remains in use. A bipartisan U.S. Paraquat Prevention Act, backed by the Parkinson's Foundation, would ban it nationwide and force the EPA to cancel all remaining registrations.

Treated sewage sludge, marketed as "biosolid" fertilizer, has been spread on farmland across the United States for decades — but it can carry PFAS ("forever chemicals") that never break down in soil or water. In Maine, more than 80 farms have been confirmed contaminated; dairy farmer Fred Stone's herd tested with PFAS levels so high in its milk that the milk could not legally be sold, forcing him to halt production and euthanize his cows. Maine became the first U.S. state to ban land application of PFAS-containing sewage sludge. There are currently no federal limits on PFAS in biosolids and no requirement to test them before farmland application. Farmers filed a federal lawsuit alleging the EPA failed to regulate PFAS in sewage sludge despite decades of internal knowledge of the risk, but a federal district court dismissed the suit in 2025, leaving the regulatory gap unresolved.

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide tied by a large body of research to neurodevelopmental harm in children, including lower birth weight, reduced IQ, working-memory loss, attention disorders, and delayed motor development from prenatal exposure. The EPA revoked all food-use tolerances in August 2021, effectively banning it on food and animal feed nationwide — but the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that rule in November 2023 and reinstated the tolerances after industry challenges. The EPA proposed a narrower rule in December 2024 that would again ban most food uses, carving out exceptions for only 11 crops (alfalfa, apple, asparagus, tart cherry, citrus, cotton, peach, soybean, strawberry, sugar beets, and wheat) in specific states, with an amended risk assessment and interim decision expected in 2026 — a regulatory back-and-forth spanning more than a decade.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005 as a Category 4 storm near New Orleans, Louisiana. The failure of the levee system flooded 80% of New Orleans. It killed 1,833 people and caused $125 billion in damage, becoming the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history at the time. The federal response under FEMA was widely criticized.

Neonicotinoid insecticides — most notably imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam — are widely used as seed coatings and sprays and have been strongly linked to honey-bee colony collapse disorder, causing disorientation and mass die-offs sometimes described as "mad bee disease." The European Union banned outdoor use of the three core neonicotinoids in 2013 and expanded the ban in 2018; as of 2026 the EU has moved to prohibit imports of products containing even trace amounts of the banned chemicals. Enforcement has been contested: pesticide manufacturers and growers have used emergency-use exemptions extensively, with more than 200 granted across the EU in 2023 alone, nearly half involving neonicotinoids. The chemicals remain broadly legal and widely used in the United States.

A multistate Salmonella Typhimurium and Salmonella Newport outbreak — including extensively drug-resistant strains in some cases — has been linked to dietary supplements containing imported moringa leaf powder, sold under brands including TNVitamins, Live it Up, Doctor's Pride, Why Not Natural, and MOGO. The outbreak was first identified in January 2026 and, as of the FDA's June 2026 update, has grown to 119 illnesses across 36 states with 32 hospitalizations. Health officials briefly declared the outbreak over in March 2026 before reopening the investigation in May 2026 after additional illnesses emerged, raising concerns about incomplete traceback and continued contaminated product in commerce. The specific supplier or country of origin of the contaminated moringa leaf powder has not been publicly identified.

DBCP (dibromochloropropane), sold as Nemagon or Fumazone, was a nematocide used heavily on Central American banana plantations. Manufacturers Dow Chemical and Shell Chemical had internal exposure studies dating to the 1950s showing testicular atrophy and reduced sperm counts in animals, yet the chemical continued to be applied on plantations operated by Dole, Chiquita, and Fresh Del Monte even after DBCP was banned in the United States in 1979 due to worker sterility concerns. Thousands of Central American banana workers who used the chemical without protective equipment developed sterility and, they allege, cancer. A 2006 Nicaraguan court ordered Dow, Shell, and Dole to pay $805 million in damages, but the companies withdrew their assets from Nicaragua and the judgment was never enforced, leading affected workers to pursue enforcement action in French courts, most recently rejected on appeal in February 2026.