24
Oct
Legislation Seeks to Reduce Pesticides in School Lunches, Advances Some Organic Policy
(Beyond Pesticides, October 24, 2024) When U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced S. 5084, Safe School Meals Act (SSMA) in September, he identified four objectives:
- Directing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to set safe limits for heavy metals in school meals. The limits will be based on a threshold of reasonable certainty of no harm to school-age children from aggregate exposure. If the agencies fail to set these limits within two years, the limits will automatically be set to non-detectable until the agencies can determine a safe level of exposure.
- Banning glyphosate, paraquat, and organophosphate pesticide residues in school meals. Certified organic farms would automatically meet this requirement.
- Banning PFAS, phthalates, lead, and bisphenols in food packaging in school meals.
- Directing FDA to reevaluate food additives with known carcinogenic, reproductive, or developmental health harms, such as artificial food dyes, and ban their use in school meals prior to the completion of FDA’s analysis.
While groups like Beyond Pesticides applaud Senator Booker’s initiative to restrict exposure to some of the most hazardous toxicants, especially the most vulnerable subpopulation of children, their goal is to provide organic food to school children. In this spirit, groups have advocated that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program procure certified organic food (see Daily News and Action of the Week). There are concerns regarding the imposition of costly monitoring and testing components that may be unfeasible and unrealistic given previous and existing failures of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and FDA to fulfill their mandates. (See Daily News here, here, and here.)
Breaking Down the Bill
Advocates are concerned that legislation requiring additional monitoring and risk assessment reviews of individual classes of pesticides or individual active ingredients will run into challenges given the already glacial pace at which EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs moves to review the latest peer-reviewed, independent scientific analysis of toxicity. For example, the Food Quality Protection Act was passed in 1996 as an amendment to both Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) with one of the goals to regulate and review endocrine-disrupting impacts of registered and pending pesticides. Almost two decades later, EPA has failed to review and regulate, leading to public confusion over the true health impacts of pesticide exposure. See the following Action of the Week, Tell EPA That the Failed Pesticide Program Needs a New Start, for additional context.
The review process in S. 5084 would mandate that at least every five years, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs must “determine potential adjustments to the maximum permissible levels of heavy metals and toxic metalloids” in the National School Lunch Program. Similar provisions exist for other toxic materials that this legislation is intended to regulate. Permissible levels of toxic substances, be it PFAS, heavy metals, industrial chemicals, pesticides, are now calculated without consideration given to the cumulative impacts (or toxic burden) across all exposures. Ultimately, environmental and health advocates maintain that action is needed to end the “chemical soup” that defines daily exposure. In 2020, FDA acknowledged that half of food samples tested by the agency have toxic pesticide residues and one in ten samples have levels that violate legal limits established by EPA, according to the Pesticide Residue Monitoring Report. See Daily News here for an in-depth Consumer Reports analysis of pesticide residues in various common grocery store products.
S. 5084 establishes a pathway forward for acknowledging organic food production as a public good and service by expanding funding for the Organic Cost-Share Program to fully compensate farmers for certification costs, a long-term policy goal for organic advocates across the nation. However, the legislation’s creation of a category of “clean suppliers” will compete with certified organic farmers and wholesalers who now receive just a fraction of the support from the federal government relative to chemical-intensive growers, and would more likely divert federal funds spent by school districts that would otherwise source organic food.
Given the increased public interest and demand for organic, and concern over toxic pesticide exposure, advocates call for organic certified food to be the baseline criterion for eligibility under the National School Lunch Program—which is where this bill unfortunately falls short, given the urgent need to eliminate toxic petrochemical pesticide production, manufacturing, sales, and use.
Health Benefits of Organic
There are serious long-term health implications for children and youth exposed to the toxic soup of pesticide and chemical residues found in conventionally grown food. Research published in Environmental Pollution in 2022 identified children with higher levels of certain pesticide metabolites are more likely to go through early puberty. The American Academy of Pediatrics identified in a study published this year the proliferation of anti-microbial resistant infections resulting from overreliance on antibiotics in animal agriculture and how this poses potentially severe health risks for infants and children. Additionally, a 2024 study published in Environment International finds 60 biomarkers of pollutants and pesticides in hair analyses of children throughout France, which highlights the global crisis resulting from the inadequate regulation of toxic chemicals. Despite the known health impacts of pesticide exposure, Congress may end up removing two-hundred-foot pesticide spray “buffer zones” around 4,028 U.S. elementary schools contiguous to crop fields depending on how Farm Bill negotiations move forward, according to an analysis by Environmental Working Group.
There are additional associated benefits for children who consume organic food. Sticking to an organic diet has reduced toxic pesticide residues in the bodies of U.S. children and adults, based on several studies published in 2019 in Environmental Health, and in two 2015 studies published in Environmental Health Perspectives and by the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health. A particularly noteworthy study published in 2014 in Environmental Research found that organophosphate pesticide metabolites in the urine of adults were reduced after just a week-long organic diet. A 2019 study published in Environmental Health, led by Barcelona Institute for Global Health, found that organic food consumption among children is directly associated with higher test scores, after measuring for fluid intelligence and working memory. Conversely, lower scores on fluid intelligence tests were associated with, among other factors, children’s fast-food intake.
The transition to organic food in school cafeterias is not a new topic and policy concern. In a 2004 article published in Pesticides and You, School Lunches Go Organic: Science supports growing movement, numerous examples across the nation demonstrate a pathway forward for broader adoption of organic mandates. “Stonyfield Farm has sponsored organic programs at schools in Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire and Connecticut,” according to the article. Additionally, the authors wrote, “An organic salad bar started at Lincoln Elementary School in Olympia, Washington has proven so popular and economically feasible, all grade schools in Olympia now have one. California school districts in Berkeley, Santa Monica, and Palo Alto also have organic food programs. In 2004, the Seattle school district adopted H61.01, Breakfast and Lunch Program Procedure, a policy banning junk food and encouraging organic food in school cafeterias.”
Call to Action
Advocates welcome the leadership of Senator Booker in pushing forward legislation that eliminates glyphosate, paraquat, and organophosphate pesticides from the National School Lunch Program, as well as the elevation of organic food production on the national stage. This is not a surprise given the Senator’s leadership in pushing forward the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA) in 2023, which also aims to address gaps in national pesticide regulation. (See here and here for Daily News articles on PACTPA). To strengthen the objectives of this proposed legislation, see this Action of the Week to tell USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service to require organic school lunches in public schools to combat the obesity and nutrition crises facing children.
Beyond Pesticides’ 41st National Forum, Imperatives for a Sustainable Future—Reversing the existential crises of pesticide-induced illness, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency, begins on October 30 at 2-4pm (EDT) and then continues on November 14 at 1pm (EST). The Forum provides an opportunity to discuss with world-renowned scientists, from Germany and the United States, both (i) the hazards that define the urgency of threats associated petrochemical toxicants, with a focus on chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system (including pesticides) and lead to life-threatening diseases, and (ii) the strategy for adopting a path forward that tackles the problem holistically, rather than one chemical at a time.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Source: Office of Senator Cory Booker
