Bulletin #642
August 3, 2006
” Is the first time in history anyone has ever challenged the new registration or use (tolerances) of a pesticide! Every previous effort at stopping use of pesticides has essentially been ‘closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped’. Up until now, environmental groups have simply been outmatched by the cozy relationship between chemical companies and EPA’s OPP (Office of Pesticide Programs). No one has ever entered the fray “at the ground floor”: challenging the poor science in EPA’s shoddy Health Risk Assessments, and fighting the secretive process where the public is frequently illegally shut out. The best example with sulfuryl fluoride was when the EPA OPP never made their Health Risk Assessment (HRA) available to the public until six months after they made their decision. In fact, from the dated documents it appears the HRA was not even completed until well after the decision to allow high tolerances was made!”
The campaign against sulfuryl fluoride is making environmental and public health history. Maybe that is why so many people are eager to join the effort and sign letters challenging EPA and Dow. Maybe this can be part of a larger effort to inform Americans of how little true oversight really occurs to keep food safe from toxic chemicals. Many pesticide registrations suffer the same types of problems as sulfuryl fluoride. Most concerning of all is perhaps the fact that EPA has yet to consider the possible additive or even synergistic effect of multiple chemical exposures. EPA is still looking at single pesticides, and does not take into account the possibility that a pesticide plus lead plus mercury plus aluminum plus dioxin might produce greater harm than any one chemical alone.”
Published: August 2, 2006
“We are concerned that the agency has not, consistent with its principles of scientific integrity and sound science, adequately summarized or drawn conclusions” about the chemicals, union leaders told the agency administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, in a newly disclosed letter sent May 25.
The leaders also wrote that they believed that under priorities of E.P.A. management, “the concerns of agriculture and the pesticide industry come before our responsibility to protect the health of our nation’s citizens.”
Nine union leaders representing 9,000 agency scientists and other personnel around the country signed the letter. It was given to The New York Times on Tuesday by environmental advocacy organizations working on their behalf in the hope that it would arouse public outcry and increase pressure on the agency to withdraw the chemicals from use.
The chemicals at issue are organophosphates and carbamates, long a matter of controversy over their environmental and health risks. They are in such pesticides as chlorpyrifos, methyl parathion and diazinon.
The advocacy organizations that released the letter, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Pesticide Action Network, also provided the agency’s response, on June 27, from Susan B. Hazen, acting assistant administrator. Ms. Hazen assured the scientists that her agency was applying proper scientific review for the use of all chemicals in pesticides.
Ms. Hazen did not deny the accusation that industry positions were taken into account. She welcomed information “from all interested parties,” she said.
In an interview on Tuesday, Jim Jones, director of the E.P.A.’s pesticide office, described the scientists’ accusations as inaccurate, saying the agency examines the effects of various chemicals and adjusts recommendations for public use according to what the science dictates.
Risk assessments of the pesticides cited in the unions’ letter, Mr. Jones said, have been “aggressively regulated” through steady reviews of their use over the last six years.
The complaints from agency employees are the latest to come from within federal agencies that accuse the Bush administration of allowing politics or industry pressure to trump science on issues like climate change and stem cell research.
In this case, they also echo concerns raised by the E.P.A. inspector general in January in a report that suggested the agency had not done enough to protect children from exposure to pesticides, which can affect the development of the brain and the nervous system. That investigation was prompted, in part, by published reports of a Florida program in which parents would be paid for letting their children participate in an effort measuring the effects of pesticides in the home. The program was quickly shut down.
The inspector general’s report fueled a growing desire among union leaders to take a more active role in shedding light on what they say is a flawed system.
“More and more, the unions are coming together to confront the agency’s unwillingness to make the appropriate use of science to show risks to public health and the environment,” said William Hirzy, a senior scientist at the environmental agency and a union official.
Despite the agency’s insistence that pesticide regulations follow scientific guidelines, several agency scientists said industry determined how chemicals were regulated.
“It’s how the game is played,” said an E.P.A. specialist involved in the pesticide program who spoke on the condition of anonymity because, he said, critics within the agency often lose choice assignments.
“You go to a meeting, and word comes down that this is an important chemical, this is one we’ve got to save,” he said. “It’s all informal, of course. But it suggests that industry interests are governing the decisions of E.P.A. management. The pesticide program functions as a governmental cover for what is effectively a private industry licensing program.”
She cited a North Carolina researcher who found that chlorpyrifos might have a more damaging effect on developing brains than other studies. “What we heard back from headquarters was, ‘No, he’s wrong,’ ” the scientist said.
“Chemicals like these can be harmful to children in ways we don’t understand yet,'’ the scientist said. “If there is disagreement, doesn’t that cry out for further research?”
Mr. Jones said the agency had addressed chlorpyrifos in complying with a 10-year Congressional mandate to review 9,741 pesticide ingredients by Thursday.
I am deeply concerned about a new fluoride-based pesticide (sulfuryl fluoride) that EPA is allowing to be sprayed on all processed foods and a broad assortment of raw food. While EPA’s decision may benefit the bottom line of Dow AgroSciences, it does not protect the public health, or the public interest.
The public expects EPA to employ the best science available in its approval of pesticides. However, it is apparent that this did not happen with sulfuryl fluoride. Indeed, the National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that the safety standard used by EPA to approve sulfuryl fluoride is, in fact, not safe at all.
Moreover, as the NAS report makes clear, and as is evident by the growing number of children with dental fluorosis, many Americans are being OVER-exposed to fluoride. There is no safety margin for additional fluoride exposures that will result from sulfuryl fluoride. I am particularly concerned for susceptible subsets of consumers, including children, people with kidney disease, people with excess thirst (e.g. diabetics, athletes, and laborers) and people with nutrient deficiencies.
Please add my comments to the docket #: EPA-HQ-OPP-2005-0174 and EPA-HQ-OPP-2003-0373.
Posted by Anita
in FAN
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