Chemical Awareness . The free Internet newsletter covers European chemical policy news and is published by nongovernmental organizations involved in the Chemicals Policy Campaign. Non-government organization positions on EU's Chemicals White Paper UK's Easter egg retailers urged to go lindane free . The insecticide was found in 75 percent of supermarket chocolate products tested in 1998 by the United Kingdom government. It is still used to grow cocoa in cocoa-producing countries in Africa, and thus, makes it way into chocolate through the tainted cocoa.
Pesticides threaten California's red legged frogs .
In addition to gross habitat loss, agricultural pesticides carried by the wind may contribute to the red legged frogs' decline in California, according to research published in the April issue of Ecological Applications . To find possible reasons for the frog's decline, scientists mapped the frogs' historic and current range. The 48 percent of sites without frogs were 6.5 times more likely to be downwind from agricultural activities than land where the frogs still live. To help the species survive, the red legged frog gained habitat protection in March. Another recent study, published in December's Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and reported in EEOH's December 2000 ED News , found that the wind carries pesticides to mountain waterways where they interfere with physiological processes crucial to amphibian reproduction.