Why does the US allow a controversial weed killer banned across the world?

A good friend sent an article of that title published in The Guardian. I'm not sure this article will be behind a paywall or not, in my experience some are and other aren't.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/28/paraquat-weedkiller-epa-ban?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

If you can't see it (it is very good BTW) I will try and relay the gist of it here: Another common sense look into the world of US regulation of "foods" and chemical substances, with industry profits on one side and population health on the other...guess who the winner of that boxing match is?

A reminder, I frequently enclose the word "food" in quotes to remind us that most of what we consume today is hard pressed to qualify as actual food. IMHO tastes good and filling does not equal "healthy" unless one is referring to fruits and vegetables. The more clear it becomes to me as a result of my own health that fruits and vegetables are optimum people food, the more confused and conflicted the world seems to become about which foods are the true "cause of health".

What is the cause of health? Primarily the absence of toxins entering the body, and the entry of balanced nutrition. It's not complicated, but the avalanche of (very profitable!) disinformation swamps the voices of reason and common sense who do not have the power of industrial profits behind them.

Second best to a whole foods fruit and vegetable diet is any whole foods diet. In other words if the only thing you do is to eliminate "foods" that have an ingredients list attached the better off you will be for it.

So: why do we allow industrial toxic pollutants into our food supply at all? The answer can be found in this paragraph I found in an investment letter titled "Nine Billion Reasons to Invest in Agrochemical Innovation".

The common solution for all these infestations is chemical control... broadspectrum insecticides – such as pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, and organophosphates – that target and kill a wide range of insects, including entire groups or species. And while the use of chemical compounds poses risks to human health and the environment, it's the lesser of two evils for folks facing frequent food shortages.

Ah ha, the reason is because we have to kill off huge swaths of nature-ecology in order for us nine billion humans to survive. There just isn't enough room on the planet for both of us. By that logic we will only truly be thriving when we've wiped out all of nature-ecology.

Are we talking billions of humans or billions of dollars?

But no worries! When we've wiped out all of nature we can go to Mars! Hey, rocks are nature too...who needs biology?

Oh, and by the way, the next big investment trend is artificial biology. OK, now we can go to Mars.