Valencia Porter, MD, MPH

08/31/2026

Who’s pockets were lined on this one? Oh lemme guess.

The U.S. EPA just approved a carcinogenic herbicide called trifludimoxazin for agricultural use on a wide range of crops, including corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, peanuts, citrus fruits (including oranges), apples, and tree nuts such as almonds.

Trifludimoxazin is also considered by many environmental groups to be a PFAS pesticide because it contains highly fluorinated chemical structures and can break down into persistent fluorinated compounds - i.e. nature can't break it down properly as it's synthetic. Environmental organizations have described it as a "forever chemical" and have filed lawsuits challenging the EPA's approval.

Environmental groups have also pointed out that the company's own studies showed evidence suggesting cancer concerns and that the EPA downplayed those findings whe not was approved. The EPA claims the product is safe and that people shouldn't be concerned. Not a good look for MAHA.

As per usual with a systems view, the EPA's decisions are financial first, not human and ecological wellbeing first. The way they see it, if a herbicide helps farmers control resistant weeds and maintain crop yields, regulators will approve even if they are unsure of the long term consequences on humans and nature.

The short sightedness of this view is that while in some cases you might see higher yields and lower costs, the potential environmental costs may take decades to appear and are spread across society - much like they are now with other unwise decisions that have been made. While the system tends to reward the, it punishes humans and nature in the long term.

Why have we designed a food and regulatory system to avoid looking at cumulative, long-term environmental risks before they become major problems?

08/15/2026

If you are against abortions, I totally respect your right to not have one. But stop denying healthcare to women. This is not only wrong, it’s deadly.

07/15/2026

I felt so much better while traveling in Italy including being able to tolerate foods I normally cannot tolerate here in the US. They don’t allow glyphosate use - at all! Time to stop using harmful chemicals that are poisoning our foods and making us sick! Glyphosate is not the solution, it’s the problem.

07/04/2026

07/04/2026

🚨Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bayer, Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced the bipartisan People Over Poison Act to restore Americans’ right to hold pesticide companies accountable in state courts.

The bill clarifies that federal pesticide law does not shield pesticide manufacturers from failure-to-warn lawsuits, helping preserve the ability of individuals and families to seek justice when they have been harmed by pesticide exposure.

This bipartisan legislation is an important step toward putting people over poison and ensuring pesticide companies are not above accountability. Thank you Congresswoman Chellie Pingree & Congressman Thomas Massie !!!!

06/28/2026

Meanwhile the US is protecting corporations spraying toxic chemicals on our foods which also destroy our environment.

Japan looked at one of agriculture's oldest and most persistent problems, insects destroying crops, and decided the answer was not more chemicals. The answer was color. Specifically red. And the insects are genuinely baffled by it.
Farmers in Japan have been deploying vibrant red nets over their crops and the results have been significant enough that the rest of the agricultural world is starting to pay close attention. The nets work by disrupting the visual cues that insects rely on to navigate toward plants they want to eat. Many pest species orient themselves using specific wavelengths of light to identify crops, locate landing sites, and coordinate the behaviors that make them so destructive to agriculture. The bright red color of the nets breaks up those visual cues in a way that confuses the insects, interrupts their navigation, and dramatically reduces the number that successfully reach and damage the crops underneath.
The outcome is a drastically reduced need for pesticides. Not a moderate reduction. A drastic one. Which is the kind of result that should make everyone who cares about food systems, environmental health, and the economics of farming pay serious attention.
Let's talk about why pesticide reduction matters at a scale beyond any individual farm because the implications are significant and they touch a lot of things simultaneously.
Pesticides are effective at killing the insects that destroy crops. They are also effective at killing insects that are not the target, including bees and other pollinators that agriculture depends on for the reproduction of many of the crops we eat. The collapse of pollinator populations, which has been documented across North America and Europe for years, is connected in meaningful ways to agricultural pesticide use. You cannot saturate the agricultural landscape with chemicals designed to kill insects and expect the insects you want to survive to simply avoid the areas being treated.
Pesticide runoff also enters water systems and accumulates in ways that affect aquatic ecosystems, drinking water quality, and the broader environmental health of agricultural regions. Reducing pesticide application is not just a farming efficiency question. It is an environmental health question with downstream effects on communities nowhere near the fields where the chemicals were applied.
And then there is the cost question. Pesticides are expensive. A farming operation that dramatically reduces its pesticide use is a farming operation with meaningfully lower input costs, which in an industry where margins are persistently thin and unpredictable is not a small thing. Cheaper to produce and less chemically intensive is the direction that sustainable agriculture has been trying to move for decades. A red net that confuses bugs is a remarkably simple way to move in that direction.
The simplicity of the solution is part of what makes it beautiful. It does not require a new chemical. It does not require genetic modification. It does not require expensive equipment or specialized knowledge. It requires a net. A red one. Stretched over a crop. The insects look at it and their navigation system fails them and the plants underneath are protected by nothing more than a color.
Nature's vulnerabilities are sometimes as simple as its strengths. Japanese farmers found one and figured out how to use it. The bugs never had a chance.
The rest of the world's farmers should probably be taking notes.

06/23/2026

FREE Global screening June 23rd!

06/20/2026

🎥 1 WEEK - The global online premiere event for ‘FARMACY OF LIGHT’ starts next week, Tuesday June 23rd.

From the filmmakers behind The Need To GROW, this groundbreaking exploration (narrated by Evangeline Lilly) uncovers the hidden connections between food, light, and our resilient capacity to heal.

Because we all need to heal something.

Starting on the 23rd: anyone, anywhere in the world can watch during our global launch event. Stay tuned for more updates, and mark your calendar 🗓️