Exposure to synthetic and naturally occurring chemicals can affect important endocrine pathways and induce toxic responses. Authors from a variety of scientific disciplines contributed to the CAST paper, which provides an analysis of multiple, widely reported issues, such as altered reproductive development and increased incidences of cancer.

This issue paper helps pinpoint factors that need to be considered as farmers and others use soil tests as a guide to protecting the environment while producing economical food.

The same farming practices that promote soil conservation can also decrease the amount of carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and threatening a global warming. Agricultural practices that conserve soil and increase productivity while improving soil quality also increase the amount of carbon-rich organic matter in soils, thereby providing a global depository for carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere by growing plants.

Findings are presented on the growing danger to national forests, recreational, and agricultural lands from noxious weed infestations. These infestations are causing costly and irreparable damage to wetlands, wildlife habitat, wildlands, rangelands, and aquatic and riparian areas on public and private lands all across the United States, especially in popular western recreation states.

This issue paper is a summary of the recent scientific developments that underpin modern biotechnology and a discussion of the potential risks and benefits when these are applied to agricultural crops.

Scientists discuss the risks associated with sudden loss of pesticides due to the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA) and suggest possible solutions.

Discussion of the feasibility of applying the medical model of prescriptions to high-risk pesticides that are being reassessed following passage by Congress of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) in 1996.

A panel of five members of the National Academy of Sciences formed by CAST examine the scientific merits of the Biotechnology Industry Organization response to the major conclusions reached by eleven professional scientific societies on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate genes which make plants resistant to pests by means of genetic engineering under the same regulations developed for use of chemical pesticides applied to plants.

The scientific evidence does not support restrictions in the consumption of salted, smoked, or nitrite-preserved foods by the U.S. population.

Foodborne bacteria cause as many as 9,000 deaths in the United States annually; yet scientifically proven safe, low doses of pasteurizing radiation can kill over 99% of most foodborne bacteria. Radiation pasteurization safely controls foodborne pathogens on beef, pork, lamb, and seafood.