In the past two years, Monsanto has renewed its efforts into research for GM wheat. The company has built a ‘seed chipper” for wheat -a proprietary and prohibitively expensive machine that speeds the process of identifying beneficial crop traits. In 2009, the company paid $45 million to buy WestBred, a Montana-based wheat seed company. Monsanto says its efforts will focus on biotechnology and traditional breeding to achieve a drought-tolerant trait and increased yield.

Genetic research and modification has been slower for wheat compared to soy and corn because of the grain’s genetic complexity and lower potential monetary returns to commercial seed companies, which discourage investment in research. In the corn sector, where hybrids are used, farmers generally buy seed from dealers every year. However, many wheat farmers, particularly in the Plains states, use saved seed instead of buying from dealers every year. In addition, U.S. food processors have been wary of consumer reaction to products containing genetically modified wheat, so no GM wheat is currently grown in the United States.

In past years, Monsanto had been working to commercialize a genetically modified wheat, but in 2004, facing industry rejection, the company pulled back. A consortium of groups, including Beyond Pesticides, argued there was widespread foreign opposition to buying biotech wheat as well as various environmental concerns, and demanded that the USDA withhold approval of Monsanto’s GM wheat variety until the government assesses the complete environmental and economic impacts of the product. A 2003 study by the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) shows that introduction of GM wheat will adversely affect the U.S. wheat industry. The study predicts that commercialization of GM wheat would result in a loss of 30 to 50% of U.S. export markets. In 2009, farmers, consumers and civil society organizations in Australia, Canada and the U.S. released a joint statement confirming their collective commitment to stop commercialization of GM wheat. Half of the country’s wheat is exported, and some of those export markets adopted a zero-tolerance stance on the presence of genetically modified grain, meaning even one genetically modified seed could prompt a wholesale rejection of a shipment.

Last month, USDA issued a proposal that would allow industry groups seeking deregulation of GM products to submit their own environmental evaluations as part of the deregulation process. This follows several decisions to deregulate GM alfalfa and sugar beets, despite contamination risks it poses to both organic and conventional farmers. In March 2011, in an effort to protect them from patent infringement in the event of drift contamination by Monsanto’s GM seed, 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations preemptively filed suit against the agribusiness giant. The case, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhattan on behalf of Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT).

Wheat is grown on more acres globally than any other crop and provides roughly 20 percent of the world’s calories, according to the United Nations. But, American farmers have stopped planting it in recent years. From the 1980s to today, wheat acreage has dropped about 30 percent, from 85 million acres to 60 million. The drop, growers say, is largely because research in wheat has lagged, while innovation in soy and corn has exploded. In February, USDA launched a five-year $25 million grant to perform wheat research, looking at everything from disease to yield.

GM wheat, like other GM crops, can cause serious environmental damage, including the development of resistant weeds, contamination of non-GM crops and organic farms and the unknown impacts of human health. For more information on genetically modified crops and recent federal and legal development visit the Genetic Engineering webpage.

Leonardo Trasande, MD, Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, analyzed the costs of conditions — including lead poisoning, childhood cancer, asthma, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — associated with exposure to toxic chemicals. Dr. Trasande and his team calculated the annual cost for direct medical care and the indirect costs, such as parents’ lost work days, and lost economic productivity caring for their children, of these diseases in children. The researchers found the annual cost in the United States to be an estimated $76.6 billion, representing 3.5 percent of all U.S. health care costs in 2008. The breakdown includes: lead poisoning ($50.9 billion), autism ($7.9 billion), intellectual disability ($5.4 billion), exposure to mercury pollution ($5.1 billion), ADHD ($5 billion), asthma ($2.2 billion), and childhood cancer ($95 million).

“Our findings show that, despite previous efforts to curb their use, toxic chemicals have a major impact on health care costs and childhood morbidity,” said Dr. Trasande. “New policy mandates are necessary to reduce the burden of disease associated with environmental toxins. The prevalence of chronic childhood conditions and costs associated with them may continue to rise if this issue is not addressed.”

Dr. Trasande also reviewed an earlier study of 1997 data, which was conducted by Philip J. Landrigan, MD, and documented $54.9 billion in annual costs for childhood diseases associated with environmental toxicants in the United States. Reviewing this prior analysis, Dr. Trasande found that while exposure to lead and costs associated with asthma had diminished, new chemicals and new environmentally-induced diseases, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, have increased the overall burden of disease. Dr. Landrigan is currently Dean for Global Health, and Professor and Chair of Preventive Medicine, and Professor of Pediatrics, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

In a related article also in the current issue of Health Affairs, Dr. Landrigan and Lynn R. Goldman, MD, Dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University, propose a three-pronged approach to reduce the burden of disease and rein in the effects of toxic chemicals in the environment:

— Conduct a requisite examination of chemicals already on the market for potential toxicity, starting with the chemicals in widest use, using new, more efficient toxicity testing technologies.
— Assess all new chemicals for toxicity before they are allowed to enter the marketplace, and maintain strictly-enforced regulation on these chemicals.
— Bolster ongoing research and epidemiologic monitoring to better understand, and subsequently prevent, the health impact of chemicals on children.

“Implementing these proposals would have a significant impact in preventing childhood disease and reducing health costs,” said Dr. Landrigan. “Scant legislation has been passed to reduce the risks associated with childhood exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment. Even though only six chemicals have been banned, we have seen dramatic benefits from that action alone. The removal of lead from gasoline and paint is an example of the importance of this type of regulation.”

In a separate article in Health Affairs, Perry Sheffield, MD, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, evaluated the little-studied correlation between air pollution and infectious respiratory illness in children, and the resultant health care costs. Dr. Sheffield and her team analyzed hospitalization data between 1999 and 2007 for children aged one month to one year who had bronchiolitis — a type of viral lung infection with symptoms similar to asthma — and monitored the air quality surrounding in the hospitals where the patients were treated. They found a statistically significant association between levels of fine particulate matter pollutant surrounding the hospitals, and total charges and costs for infant bronchiolitis hospitalizations. Her team revealed that as the amount of air pollutants increased, infant bronchiolitis hospitalization costs increased by an average of $127 per patient.

Many everyday chemicals that people are exposed to can wreak havoc on the body’s endocrine system. Pesticides such as triclosan, atrazine, permethrin and many others have been associated with effects on the body’s hormone system. Visit the Pesticide Induced Disease Database for more on the chemicals linked to endocrine disruption. Endocrine effects include direct effects on traditional endocrine glands, their hormones and receptors such as estrogens, anti-androgens, and thyroid hormones, as well as signaling cascades that affect many of the body’s systems, including reproductive function and fetal development, the nervous system and behavior, the immune and metabolic systems, the liver, bones and many other organs, glands and tissues. Read Beyond Pesticides’ factsheet.

As early as 1988, before the term ”˜endocrine disruption’ was used, Dr. Colborn began collecting scientific literature on chemicals that could interfere with function, development and reproduction, particularly on chemicals that had effects at ambient concentrations in wildlife. Today, TEDX’s collection of endocrine disruption literature has grown to over 43,000 documents, including thousands of scientific studies that demonstrate impairment of the endocrine system. In the TEDX List, every citation refers to a primary research study that we acquired and read. Several years went into the process of verifying citations and acquiring publications we did not already have. The number of citations presented in the TEDX List does not necessarily reflect the amount of research that has been done on each chemical and for practical reasons was limited to a maximum of five citations per chemical.

Earlier this year, the American Public Health Association (APHA) adopted a new policy calling for greater government action to protect the public from endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The policy statement follows official positions released earlier in 2010 by both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Endocrine Society in that more needs to be done to protect the public from endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or those that interfere with hormone action. The European Union (EU) also has a database identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals. For a complete list of EU-identified endocrine disruptors, see the EU’s “Endocrine Disruptors Website” database page.

Hundreds of scientific articles have been published across the globe demonstrating how a broad selection of chemicals can interfere with the normal development at extremely low levels of exposure. Scientists discovered effects for some widely used chemicals at concentrations thousands of times less than federal “safe” levels of exposure derived through traditional toxicological tests. Atrazine for example, is the herbicide most frequently found in surface and drinking waters in the U.S. It is linked to a host of adverse health effects including endocrine disruption, which has been well-documented in frogs and other laboratory animals. A recent study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley showed that atrazine acts as an endocrine disruptor and can cause complete sex reversal in male frogs at 2.5 parts per billion. Certain synthetic pyrethroids, one of the most widely used classes of pesticides, have also been found to demonstrate significant estrogenic activity and increase estrogen levels in the human body. The effects of estrogenic pesticides have been widely researched and have been identified as being responsible for prevalence of feminized fish and amphibians. Triclosan, the controversial antibacterial pesticides that Beyond Pesticides has petitioned the EPA and FDA to ban from consumer products, has been found to interfere with estrogen metabolism in women and can disrupt a vital enzyme during pregnancy.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it has identified a list of chemicals that will be screened for their potential to disrupt the endocrine system, along with a draft of the policies and procedures that the agency has proposed to follow for testing. The agency is mandated to test chemicals for their potential to affect the hormone system. However, the agency has yet to finalize its procedures or officially test a chemical for endocrine disruption since tasked to do so in 1996 by an act of Congress. Dr. Colborn has criticized EPA’s testing program stating that the tests are outdated, insensitive, crude, and narrowly limited, and will fail to detect many serious effects on human development. The tests to be used by EPA were first recommended in 1998. Since then the science has made progress and become more sophisticated. Current research is based on different assumptions than the toxicological assumptions that first drove the EPA test designs. However, EPA has not updated its protocol.

Source: The Endocrine Exchange Inc.

The event also featured such noted speakers as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, global sustainability advocate Vandana Shiva, nutritionist Marion Nestle, writer Wendell Berry, urban agriculture pioneer Will Allen, organic researcher Fred Kirschenmann, author Eric Schlosser, Stonyfield CEO Gary Hirshberg, and many more.

Prince Charles in his speech (text available here, video available here) discussed many of the problems currently facing food production and advocated for a swifter and more direct move toward more sustainable, or “durable,” as he called it, systems. Pointing out the many dangers caused by an industrial farming system that depletes natural resources and impairs biodiversity, he argued that we cannot afford to continue operating under the current system for very much longer before it starts to fall apart. In order to foster the necessary change, the Prince said that agricultural policy, in the U.S. and around the developed world, needs a drastic overhaul in order to incentivize and reward farmers undertaking positive change. The current system actually penalizes farmers and food utilizing sustainable methods while paying huge sums of money to farmers who plant monocultures of corn and soybeans on every available strip of bare land, he said.

He also pointed to research that was done by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) — convened by the United Nations and the World Bank — which demonstrated that small-scale systems of agro-ecology are fully capable of producing enough food for the developing world while helping to preserve and replenish natural resources. Hans Herron of IAASTD was there to speak in a later panel. Additionally, a report put out earlier this year by United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food came to similar conclusions, even going so far as to say that these more sustainable systems can actually double food production in certain regions.

Later in the conference, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a last minute addition to the conference agenda, took questions from the audience after a short speech about current projects at USDA. Several of the questions relayed a sense of frustration from the general public stemming from recent regulatory decisions.

One question in particular cut to the heart of the matter when filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia (Future of Food) asked how Sec.Vilsack could approve deregulation of Monsanto’s GE alfalfa https://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=4888. Sec. Vilsack’s reiterated his belief in the potential for “coexistence” between organic and GE agriculture and said that he can’t favor one over the other because it would be like asking him to chose which one of his sons is his favorite. Ms. Garcia, referring to the agribusiness lobby, said to Sec. Vilsack, “one of your sons is a bully,” which brought cheers from the audience. The Secretary responded that he wants to move away from this kind of antagonism and gather a group of stakeholders to discuss ways to move forward with agreement, despite the fact that the burden of harm is unequally placed upon organic farmers who may find their crops contaminated with GE crops.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, a strong advocate for reducing corporate control of the food system in developing countries, later criticized the approach proposed by Sec. Vilsack in saying that it is not democratic for a small panel of experts to decide the future of food production for an entire population. What is needed, according to Dr. Shiva, is for all of us to take part in our food system in order to achieve true justice and sovereignty.

Elsewhere, eight of the world’s leading foundations have launched AGree, a new initiative that will tackle long-term food and agriculture policy issues confronting the nation and the world as the population continues to grow and resources become ever-more constrained.

AGree’s mission to nurture dialogue among diverse opinions on agriculture issues is embodied by the leaders of the initiative: Dan Glickman, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Bill Clinton and a former congressman from Kansas for 18 years; Gary Hirshberg, chairman, president and “CE-Yo” of Stonyfield Farm; Jim Moseley, former deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President George W. Bush and Indiana farmer for more than 40 years; and, Emmy Simmons, former assistant administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade at the U.S. Agency for International Development and a board member for several organizations engaged in international agriculture and global development.

“Our current food system is broken for farmers, consumers and the environment,” Mr. Hirshberg said. “We must move beyond the political knee-jerk defense of traditional agriculture and face the need for change armed with real-world, scientific facts and analysis that AGree can provide,” Mr. Hirshberg said.

“Agriculture has evolved from simply producing food to feed people and now has numerous demands placed on it. As a result the current discussion on agriculture and food policy is having problems focusing on what is really important; stakeholders talk past one another and often fail to comprehend policy implications beyond a specific sector,” Mr. Moseley said. “The key to solving these diverse policy questions is through dialogue across sectors. AGree will promote these conversations and help us find the right balance on these conflicts to meet the broader public demands we are experiencing,” he said.

“We face a world where nearly a billion people already go hungry everyday; those numbers will continue to rise if we do not address underlying issues of quantity and quality of the world’s food systems,” Mr. Simmons said. “AGree can help align our domestic policies with the growing needs in developing countries for food security, nutrition and equitable development.”

The past 20 years have created competition and division among stakeholders on priorities such as environment, production, economy and nutrition, creating an impasse as lawmakers try to develop food and agriculture policies here in the United States and abroad.

According to AGree, it intends to foster these necessary answers by starting with an open mind to new solutions and by convening a diverse set of stakeholders including conventional and organic farmers, ranchers, nutritionists, energy experts, environmentalists, financiers, international aid veterans and public health specialists.

AGree is funded by Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and The Walton Family Foundation.

For more information on the benefits of organic agriculture and the risks of conventional production, see our page on organic food, as well our Eating with a Conscience guide, which demonstrates why organic is necessary for you, farmworkers, and the environment. Beyond Pesticides’ executive director, Jay feldman, serves on the National Organic Standards Board, which regulates allowable practices and inputs in certified organic food, and advances organic food production practices that meet defined standards of sustainability and the protection of human health and biodiversity.

The Washington Post will be publishing a story on the Future of Food conference in the next week. In the meantime, several video excerpts have been posted to the Washington Post Live website which you can view at any time.

“The town of Hudson, Quebec, and particularly the actions of June Irwin, M.D., have sent a clear signal to communities all across North America that the use of lawn and landscape pesticides is both harmful and unnecessary,” said Jay Feldman, the founder of Beyond Pesticides of Washington, D.C. “Chemical lawn pesticides are scientifically linked to cancer in people and pets, and are known to be toxic to the nervous and immune system, endocrine disruptors, and tied to respiratory effects such as asthma. Alternative practices that rely on maintenance techniques and soil health that prevent unwanted insect and weeds are far more effective than their chemical counterparts.”

Now, for 80 percent of Canadians and a growing number of Americans, synthetic chemical lawn pesticides are becoming a habit of the past. In 1991, exactly six years from the first day she voiced her concerns at a town meeting, May 6, 1985, Hudson made North American history by banning synthetic lawn and garden pesticides on public and private property except farms and golf courses. Dr. Irwin, who maintains a dermatology practice in Pointe Claire, Quebec, said she began to notice rashes and other health issues related to lawn pesticides in the early 1980s. Her early warnings were ignored by the medical community and Canadian federal government, so she took matters into her own hands by attending every town meeting in Hudson, a village just to the west of Montreal.

“Lawn pesticides are an example of people willfully, though maybe not knowingly, poisoning their neighbors,” said Dr. Irwin. “These are terribly toxic substances and yet, it seemed to me, there was a conspiracy of silence. I’m pleased that, to some degree, we have been able to break through that silence to get the word out.”

The lawn pesticide industry, estimated at billions of dollars in revenue, quickly fired back at Hudson and its 5,200 citizens with a local court challenge in 1993. Yet as the lawsuit progressed through the Canadian legal system, all the way to the Supreme Court in December of 2000, public awareness and momentum was building against the use of the products that have been linked to a wide array of health and environmental maladies. In June of 2001, Canada’s top court shocked the lawn chemical industry with a 9-0 decision in favor of the town’s ban. Other lawn pesticide prohibitions soon followed in municipalities and provinces across Canada.

“We decided that applying pesticides for the sake of aesthetic purposes violated the precautionary principle,” said Supreme Court Justice Claire L’Heureux Dube, who wrote the uncontested opinion. “There was enough evidence to suggest that lawn pesticides could be dangerous, even though there wasn’t proof that lawn pesticides were dangerous in every situation. For the sake of killing dandelions it’s not worth taking a chance.”
At first, during the early 1990s, only a few other Canadian towns followed Hudson’s lead. By the time of the Supreme Court decision in 2001, about 30 municipalities had enacted bylaws similar to Hudson’s, which restricted applications of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. Quebec became the first entire province to ban the products such as weed ’n feed and Roundup in 2003.

Heightened awareness and activity on this issue, led by the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and many other environmental and health groups, has brought lawn pesticide bans to more than 80 percent of Canada. Retail giant Home Depot voluntarily pulled synthetic lawn and garden pesticides off store shelves in 2008.

The adoption of pesticide-free and pesticide reduction policies have been gaining momentum across the country. Other examples include: New York State Parks; Chicago City Parks; 29 communities and townships in New Jersey; at least 17 cities in the Northwest, covering more than 50 parks; and, numerous communities throughout Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as new policies and programs are continually being implemented by local and state government entities as well as schools and homeowner associations.

Eliminating toxic pesticides is important in lawn and landscape management, considering that of the 30 most commonly used lawn pesticides: 14 are probable or possible carcinogens, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, and 27 are sensitizers and/or irritants. The most popular and widely used lawn chemical 2,4-D, which kills broad leaf weeds like dandelions, is an endocrine disruptor with predicted human health risks ranging from changes in estrogen and testosterone levels, thyroid problems, prostate cancer and reproductive abnormalities. 2,4-D has also been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Other lawn chemicals like glyphosate (RoundUp) have also been linked to serious adverse chronic effects in humans. Imidacloprid, another pesticide growing in popularity, has been implicated in bee toxicity and the recent Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) phenomena.

In an April 25, 2011 post on its website, EPA provides details on its recently completed internal review on the use of conditional registration for pesticide products. The agency has come under scrutiny recently since it was revealed that the conditionally registered pesticide, clothianidin, did not at the time it allowed the pesticide to be widely used have pertinent field data required on honeybees, even though the pesticide is known to pose risks to these vulnerable pollinators. This data is still outstanding even though clothianidin continues to be used in the environment.

Conditional registration is allowed under Section 3(c)(7) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), whilch allows pesticide registration to be granted even though all data requirements have not been satisfied, with the assumption that no unreasonable adverse effects on the environment will occur. When this occurs, as exemplified in the case of clothianidin and many others, pesticides are introduced to the market with unknown and unevaluated risks to human and environmental health. While all data must be eventually submitted, it often takes years before EPA acquires relevant data -often with data submitted for the 15-year reregistration review cycle that all registered pesticides must go through. It is rare that the regulatory decision will be altered once data has been submitted.

According to the agency’s review, the assignation of conditional registration for regulatory decisions has been imprecise. This is compounded with the fact that the agency is unable to properly track registration decisions. According to EPA, “There is no data system mechanism to identify or inform the agency of milestones or deadlines for conditional registration actions.”

Out of approximately 90,000 registration decisions, two percent (1,408) are considered conditional registrations for new pesticide active ingredients and new uses, with the vast majority being unconditional registrations that have submitted relevant data prior to registration. These decisions, inaccurately termed conditional registration, have been used for decisions on label amendments, product-specific formulation data, and pesticides with already existing data based on other registrations. The agency finds, therefore, that the term ”˜conditional registration’ is misleading. The agency states that it will “explore reducing the use of Section3(c)(7) conditional registrations.”

EPA has a long history of registering pesticides without adequately analyzing human and environmental health data, which even goes beyond the faulty ”˜conditional registration’ approach. Beyond Pesticides has for years said that EPA’s general registration process is flawed because the agency does not evaluate whether hazards are “unreasonable” in light of the availability of safer practices or products. Additionally, Beyond Pesticides urges EPA to take a more precautionary approach, given the history of incomplete data or assessments leading to protective action decades after widespread pesticide use was aproved. With some chronic endpoints, such as endocrine disruption, the agency has not adequately assessed chemicals for certain health risks. Several historic examples exist of pesticides that have been restricted or cancelled due to health risks decades after first registration. Chlorpyrifos, which is associated with numerous adverse health effects including reproductive and neurotoxic effects, had its residential uses cancelled in 2001. Others like propoxur, diazinon, carbaryl, aldicarb, carbofuran, and most recently endosulfan, have seen their uses restricted or canceled after years on the market.

For more information on pesticides and their adverse effects, visit Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticides Induced Disease Database.

Featured videos included with the initial launch include:
— Pesticides 101: An introduction to pesticide issues (Caroline Cox, Center for Environmental Health)
— Protecting Pollinators from Pesticides: Stopping the demise of honeybees (Tom Theobald, Niwot Honey Farm; James Frazier, PhD, Penn State University; Marygael Meister, Denver Beekeepers Association)
— Genetically Engineered Food: Failed promises and hazardous outcomes (George Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety)
— Health and Science Panel (John Adgate, PhD, Colorado School of Public Health; Dana Boyd Barr, PhD, Emory University; Christine Parks, PhD, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS); Changlu Wang, PhD; Rutgers University)
— Beyond Lists: Where did all those pesticides come from? (Theo Colborn, PhD, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange/Our Stolen Future author)
— The Polluters: The making of our chemically altered environment (Ben Ross, PhD, The Polluters author)
— Organic Land Management: From lawns to landscapes and beyond (Chip Osborne, Osborne Organics; Tom Kanatakeniate Cook, Slim Buttes Agricultural Development Program; Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine author; Rella Abernathy, PhD, City of Boulder, CO; Lani Malmberg, Ewe4ic Ecological Services, Inc.)
— Organic: United We Stand (Maria Rodale, Rodale Inc./Organic Manifesto author)

While Beyond Pesticides encourages activists, community leaders, scientists, and policy makers to attend its annual National Pesticide Forum in person to get together, share information, and elevate the pesticide reform movement, the new online videos of many of the Forum’s sessions make a similar contribution for those unable to attend. Beyond Pesticides believes that sharing this information beyond the Forum as an educational and organizing tool will prove extremely valuable, and encourages readers of the Daily News blog to share the presentations with friends, community organizations, networks and state and local decision makers. New presentations will continue to be added to the website in the upcoming weeks.

In addition to this new resource, Beyond Pesticides is on Facebook and Twitter, and the Beyond Pesticides’ website continues to provide organizing resources for activists – including the Pesticide Gateway, how-to organizing factsheets and campaign pages — as well as the Safety Source for Pest Management and do-it-yourself information on least and non-toxic management of homes, lawns and landscapes.

Watch a sample video below, and see the full selection of videos on the Beyond Pesticides’ YouTube Channel.

“Controlling pesticide drift is an important issue for pesticide applicators,” said Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Buddy Hance. “The innovative Sensitive Crop Locator database will be a valuable tool to help protect sensitive crops from unintended herbicide exposure. We encourage farmers to register their sensitive crops and field locations with MDA to ensure they are included in the voluntary database.”

Crop and field location information will be included in the new voluntary statewide Sensitive Crop Locator database to assist pesticide applicators in identifying locations where sensitive crops are grown in order to take extra precautions for preventing the potential exposure of these crops to spray drift from neighboring fields. Applicators can search, identify and locate sensitive crops adjacent to areas where they intend to spray pesticides. The database, developed with Maryland Speciality Crop Block Grant funding, will also offer pesticide applicators access to maps and aerial photographs.

It is important to note that the law does not require applicators to consult the database when spraying, or owners of sensitive crops to register. It is intended purely as a voluntary information source, should users wish to consult it.

The database could also be a useful tool for organic farmers wishing to avoid any potential contamination of their crops with substances not approved for production under organic standards. A court case in California recently found that pesticide applicators can be held responsible for contamination of organic crops with pesticide residues, suggesting that applicators would serve their own interests in addition to those of their neighbors by consulting the database and ensuring that they minimize their drift.

Pesticide spray drift is typically the result of small spray droplets being carried off-site by air movement. The main weather factors that cause drift are wind, humidity and temperature changes. Drift can injure foliage, shoots, flowers and fruits resulting in reduced yields, economic loss and illegal residues on exposed crops.

Though the tool is well intentioned, it should be noted that there are other consequences besides crop damage that often occur as a result of pesticide drift. Development of this database marks a small step toward recognizing some of the dangers associated with the unchecked release of toxic chemicals into our environment, but it does nothing to protect members of the public who may reside in nearby areas from exposure to these substances. It also does nothing to address potential contamination of waterways that can result from pesticides drifting away from their intended target and into rivers, lakes, and streams.

The only other way for Maryland residents to be notified of pesticide applications, and the sole way for non-farmers to be made aware, is through the state’s Pesticide-Sensitive Individuals Registry. Under this law, people who have a doctor’s letter attesting to their sensitivity can register to be notified in advance of pesticide use on property adjacent to their homes. There is no state law allowing non-sensitive individuals to be notified by pesticide applicators of imminent spraying, outside of residents cultivating a personal relationship with any neighboring farmers. More information on local laws and initiatives is available from the Maryland Pesticide Network.

Amphibian populations worldwide have been declining at unprecedented rates, and nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Up to 200 species have completely disappeared in recent years. Amphibians are faced with an onslaught of environmental problems, including climate change, infectious diseases, habitat loss, invasive species, and over-harvesting for the pet and food trades. Numerous studies have definitively linked pesticide use with significant effects on amphibians. Pesticides can cause abnormalities, diseases, injury and death in these frogs and other amphibians. Because amphibians breathe through their permeable skin, they are especially vulnerable to chemical contamination. Frog eggs float exposed on the water surface, where pesticides tend to concentrate, and hatched larvae live solely in aquatic environments for five to seven months before they metamorphose, so agricultural pesticides introduced into wetlands, ponds and streams are particularly harmful. Many of the pesticides that pose a threat to the frog are also known to be harmful to human health.

Atrazine is currently being reviewed by EPA after several scientific reports have emerged linking it to immunosuppression and hermaphroditism in frogs. A recent study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley showed that atrazine acts as an endocrine disruptor and can cause complete sex reversal in male frogs at 2.5 parts per billion. Atrazine was banned in the European Union in 2004, but eighty million pounds of it are used in America each year, primarily on corn.

“Atrazine is the 21st century’s DDT” says Kerry Kriger, PhD, founder of Save the Frogs. Dr. Kriger will be leading the Save the Frogs Day Rally and will provide the keynote presentation later that afternoon at Lafayette Plaza across from the White House. Dr. Kriger hopes the rally will bring attention to the problems associated with atrazine, and lead to a federal ban on its use and production. “Once Americans know about atrazine, there will be overwhelming support for a ban. If people are uninformed and unconcerned, Syngenta’s lobbying power will be difficult to overcome”, says Dr. Kriger. Atrazine is produced by Syngenta, the world’s largest pesticide company. Syngenta, based in Switzerland — where the chemical is illegal — reported over $11 billion in revenues in 2010.

In related news, researchers at the University of South Florida have discovered that the most widely used fungicide in the U.S., chlorothalonil, is lethal to frogs even at low doses. Chemical pollution, according to the researchers, is considered the second greatest threat to aquatic and amphibious species in the U.S. Because many vital systems of amphibians are similar to those in humans, researchers believe that amphibians may be an underused model for studying the impacts of chemicals in the environment on human health and set out to quantify amphibian responses to chlorothalonil. The study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives and opens the door for researchers to quantify the effects of the chemical on other species as well as other toxic pesticides on amphibian populations and human health.

“The weight of evidence described in our report, Dangerous Exposure: Farmworker Children and Pesticides, is overwhelming, if not conclusive,” notes Levy Schroeder, Director of Health & Safety Programs at AFOP. “The risk is high for farmworker children whose lives are surrounded by dangerous agricultural toxins.”

In a ten-month immersion in evidence-based findings on pesticide exposures, farmworker children and various illnesses, including cancer, the AFOP Health and Safety team reviewed primary scientific research published in professional medical and public health journals. In an effort to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the issue of pesticide exposure to farmworker children, the team also conducted focus groups and interviews with farmworker parents around the country. The parents shared stories of exposure, of having to make choices they know are not healthy for their children, of their fears for their families, and of hope that one day things will change.

In the introduction, the report states: Pesticide exposure occurs at work in the fields and also at home. Farmworkers may bring their families into contact with pesticides inadvertently through their clothes or unsafe storage of chemicals. However, thousands of children all over the country are more directly exposed to pesticide residues while they labor in fruit, vegetable, and flower crops. Discriminatory laws exempting farmworker youth from safe working conditions as they harvest on farms put them at particular risk for contact with these chemicals. Parents in farm work, who largely earn below a living wage, often opt for their children to work with them in the fields in order to provide the basics for the family. Whether exposed through parents’ field work or their own, children who develop illnesses as a result of pesticide exposure pay the price for our demands for cheap food. Coupled with the concerns of farmworker parents in their own voices about pesticide exposure, the following findings demonstrate that the health of these children is at stake.

The authors recommend that consumers know where their food comes from and encourages people to research labor practices of the companies you. They recommend eating organic and fairly traded foods whenever possible, and given the opportunity, “thank farmworkers for their necessary and important labor.”

Our food choices have a direct effect on those who grow and harvest what we eat around the world. This is why food labeled organic is the right choice. In addition to serious health questions linked to actual residues of toxic pesticides on the food we eat, our food buying decisions support or reject hazardous agricultural practices, protection of farmworkers and farm families.

For more information on the importance of eating organic food for you, workers and the environment, check out Beyond Pesticides’ Eating with a Conscience food guide and organic food program page.

The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs is a non-profit, national federation of 52 non-profit and public agencies that provide training and employment services to migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Our mission is to improve the quality of life for all farmworkers and their families through advocacy, education, and training. Dangerous Exposure: Farmworker Children and Pesticides, authored by AFOP’s Health and Safety Programs, is the first volume in The Fields, a new annual publication series that will center on farmworker health and safety issues.

APHIS is calling the proposal the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Pilot Project. NEPA, first passed in 1969 and later amended, requires the agency to evaluate any potential environmental effects of releasing GE materials into the environment (see relevant regulations at 7 CFR 340). Under these regulations, GE materials are considered by default to be “regulated articles,” meaning that APHIS must govern and issue permits for their importation, interstate movement, or environmental release. However, anyone — usually manufacturers — can petition the agency to determine that a particular GE product does not need to be regulated. Part of this petition process requires APHIS to prepare an EA or EIS to, in theory, ensure that there are no adverse environmental impacts of deregulation. The integrity of previous EIS’s has recently been brought into question, notably that of Monsanto’s GE alfalfa.

Previously, APHIS itself prepared the appropriate environmental reports. It has proposed the NEPA Pilot Project partly out of concern that the process is too resource intensive. However, advocates point out that NEPA charges the agency with performing these duties. Advocates say it is reasonable to expect the agency to allocate resources in a way that would allow it to lend appropriate time and energy to its evaluation of GE products, especially in light of recent concern and controversy over what some have perceived as its lack of dedication to the regulatory review process. The project will operate in the pilot stage for two years, after which APHIS will evaluate the results of the project and determine which evaluation option it believes is the most successful and cost effective for future petitions.

The APHIS proposal is similar to provisions in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) governing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of pesticides. This law allows pesticide companies seeking to have their products registered, or approved for use, by EPA to submit their own studies, or studies which they have funded, regarding the health and environmental safety of their product. Advocates have voiced concern that the FIFRA process, and now potentially the NEPA Pilot Project, essentially allow chemical manufacturers and agribusiness corporations to regulate themselves, providing the public with little assurance of the safety of approved products.

For more information regarding genetic engineering of agricultural crops and the recent controversy surrounding USDA’s approval of several new varieties, including GE alfalfa and GE sugar beets, see our genetic engineering program page and other Daily News blog entries.

In one cooperative project by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), entomologists Kirby Stafford, PhD and Robert Behle, PhD use lignin to encapsulate nootkatone in order to extend the chemical’s residual activity. The study, “Lignin + Nootkatone = Dead Ticks” published in the January 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

Researcher Marc Dolan, PhD of the CDC’s vector-borne infectious diseases laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado stresses nootkatone’s safety: “If you’ve had a grapefruit, you’ve consumed some nootkatone,” he said to NPR’s Morning Edition.

“Essential oils [such as nootkatone] kill bugs and then break down and are no longer active,” Dr. Dolan told Morning Edition. “So you don’t get a lot of soil contamination. We don’t see groundwater contamination. And we don’t have a high impact on other nontarget insects that may come into the sprayed area, such as bees and butterflies.”

Whether new derivatives of nootkatone will actually be “safe” remains to be seen, however. Since researchers hope that nootkatone will be formulated to last longer, it will no longer be able to claim the benefits of having low-environmental persistence. Furthermore, this same argument for safety has been made for other “natural” chemicals, such as permethrin and its very toxic chemically synthesized derivative counterparts, synthetic pyrethroids.

Sen. Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, seeks to require that chemical manufacturers demonstrate the safety of industrial chemicals used in everyday household products. “The Safe Chemicals Act of 2011” would require safety testing of all industrial chemicals, and puts the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe in order to get on or stay on the market. Currently, EPA may not regulate a chemical unless it can first prove that the chemical presents or will present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. Under this onerous cost-benefit standard, EPA has been powerless to ban any substance -even asbestos, for which the science has long been clear about its dangers. As a result, EPA has been able to require testing for just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently registered in the United States, and has been able to ban only five dangerous substances. Previous government reports document a systemic failure by EPA to adequately regulate chemicals due to a lack of data. The new legislation will give EPA more power to regulate the use of dangerous chemicals and require manufacturers to submit information proving the safety of every chemical in production and any new chemical seeking to enter the market.

“The average American has more than 200 industrial chemicals in their body, including dozens linked to cancer and other health problems. The shocking truth is that the current law does not require tests to ensure chemicals used in everyday household products are safe,” said Senator Lautenberg. “The EPA does not have the tools to address dangerous substances and even the chemical industry has asked for stronger laws to assure consumers that their products are safe. My ”˜Safe Chemicals Act’ will breathe new life into a long-dead statute by empowering EPA to separate the chemicals that help from the chemicals that hurt.”

Increasing rates of chronic diseases linked to toxic chemical exposure, including cancer, asthma, and infertility have created an urgency in state capitols to enact policies to get harmful chemicals off the market. To learn more about how pesticides are linked to serious health concerns, visit Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide Induced Diseases database.

Public health groups have long urged Congress to strengthen the law by restricting chemicals known to be dangerous and requiring testing of new and existing chemicals to ensure that they are safe. After introducing similar legislation last year, Sen. Lautenberg chaired a series of hearings to solicit feedback from chemical industry leaders, public officials, scientists, doctors, academics, and non-profit organizations. Based on that feedback, Sen. Lautenberg made several changes to improve the bill. For example, the updated bill establishes risk-based prioritization categories so that the EPA can focus resources on the highest-risk chemicals. It also requires chemical companies to initially submit basic hazard and exposure data to quickly determine the risk and assess the need for further testing or restrictions.

Unlike last year’s bill, this version would divide chemicals into three categories. The lowest category would include chemicals that are considered safe. The middle category would be for ones that need safety determinations, and the highest category would be for ones that require immediate action. That top category would include chemicals that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, meaning they don’t break down in the environment and can build up in people and other living things. The bill also calls for the promotion of “the use of safer alternatives and other actions that reduce the use of and exposure to hazardous chemical substances and reward innovation toward safer chemicals, processes, and product,” to “encourage the replacement of harmful chemicals and processes with safer alternatives.”

Beyond Pesticides has long called for alternatives assessment in environmental rulemaking that creates a regulatory trigger to adopt alternatives and drive the market to go green. The alternatives assessment approach differs most dramatically from risk assessment in rejecting uses and exposures deemed acceptable under risk assessment calculations, but unnecessary because of the availability of safer alternatives.

The legislation is co-sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Al Franken (D-MN).

In a letter to Administrator Lisa Jackson, dated April 19, 2010, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland supported the state’s request for the exemption claiming, “Without the use of propoxur, there is very little that can be done to meaningfully stop the spread of bed bug infestations.” Environmental and public health groups, including Beyond Pesticides, has urged EPA to deny the exemption.

In comments to EPA last December, Beyond Pesticides stated that indoor uses of propoxur increase exposure and health risks of residents, especially children who are vulnerable. Beyond Pesticides also reminded the agency that propoxur should not be considered for a Section 18 exemption since the pesticide was already canceled for indoor uses that expose children, and that the treatment of bed bugs is now routine, and cannot be considered an “emergency” as defined under FIFRA.

EPA has refused the state of Ohio’s request for an emergency exemption to use the restricted pesticide propoxur in residential settings for control of bed bugs, stating that the chemical “presents unreasonable risk.”

Recently, Rep. Jean Schmidt, an Ohio Republican member of Congress and a mmber of the House Agriculture Committee -which has jurisdiction over pesticide registration law, introduced an earmarked bill a few weeks ago to establish a government panel and grants for chemical product research. The bill requires taxpayers to pay for the research of new chemicals to manage bedbugs. Rep Schmidt’s bill, H.R. 967, the Bed Bug Management, Prevention and Research Act of 2011 is hailed by the pest control industry because it will push for expedited use of chemicals in the fight against bedbugs just as many in the industry are shifting to integrated pest management (IPM) practices that focus on non-chemical methods utilizing pest exclusion techniques, steam treatment, and other non-toxic methods.

While bed bug populations have rebounded in recent years, due to growing resistance to widely used insecticides, relying on even more toxic chemical control is not a feasible option. Currently, EPA and other stakeholders are working to develop new methods of combating the surge in bed bug infestations, including increasing the role of integrated pest management (IPM), which, according to the agency in its letter, “is an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest management that considers pest life cycles and relies on a combination of common-sense chemical and non-chemical solutions.”

Propoxur is a carbamate insecticide first registered in the U.S. in 1963 for the control of household pests, such as ants, cockroaches, and bed bugs. It is also commonly used in flea and tick collars. Propoxur can be very dangerous to humans and the environment. Common symptoms of poisoning include malaise, muscle weakness, dizziness, and sweating. Headache, nausea, and diarrhea may also result. EPA considers propoxur a possible human carcinogen, while the state of California classifies it as a known human carcinogen. Propoxur is also highly toxic to beneficial insects such as honeybees as well as crustaceans, fish, and aquatic insects.

Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati are among many cities in the U.S., as well as cities worldwide, that saw a recent surge in bed bug infestations. According to a survey of pest control firms bed bug outbreaks have tripled since 2005. Infestations commonly occur in homeless shelters, and low income housing, as well as hospitals, college dorms, and hotels. Bed bugs are tiny insects up to ¼ inches when full grown that usually live in cracks and crevices of bed frames and the seams of mattresses. Their bites result in sore spots or itchy welts usually found in a line, but bed bugs are not known to transmit diseases.

Fortunately, the chemical treatments, which are often more harmful than the bed bugs themselves, are not actually necessary. These pests can be effectively controlled with non-toxic approaches. An IPM approach, which includes methods such as vacuuming, steaming, and exposing the bugs to high heat, can control an infestation without the dangerous side effects. This approach, as well as taking steps such as sealing cracks and crevices, reducing clutter and encasing mattresses, can also help to prevent an infestation in the first place.

For more information on treating bedbugs, read our factsheet, “Got Bed Bugs? Don’t Panic” on our Bed Bug Program Page.

Take Action!

A vote by the house of 97-0 in favor indicates, that if you live in Ohio, you should express your dissatisfaction with your elected representative.

Please Email Rep. Dale Mallory to express your disappointment with his actions: [email protected]

On behalf of the workers, Southern Migrant Legal Services filed the lawsuit last week in Greeneville. Southern Migrant Legal Services, a Project of Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, provides free employment-related legal services to eligible migrant and seasonal agricultural workers in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

The law firm Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick & Dym Ltd is representing the farmworkers, where they are seeking compensation for lost wages, emotional distress and other punitive damages as deemed appropriate by the court. The lawsuit claims Fish Farms failed to meet minimum employment standards for the guestworker program. “Instead, believing they had a captive labor force that was Hispanic and Mexican and could not or would not complain or enforce the law, defendants flagrantly violated federal H-2A standards,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit maintains that Fish Farms housed workers in overcrowded and squalid trailers, and failed to provide them with potable water with no clothes washing facilities beside a river nearby. Furthermore, the workers allege that Fish Farms sprayed pesticides in close proximity to their living quarters and in the fields while they were working.

“Labor laws mean nothing if employers can intimidate workers into accepting deplorable working conditions,” said Mel Fowler-Green of Southern Migrant Legal Services. “These workers had the courage to speak out about their treatment, and we believe Fish Farms broke the law when it tried to silence them.”

The plaintiffs complained to the U.S. Department of Labor, and when officials arrived at the farm to investigate, the employers began their retaliation, the lawsuit claims. When investigators arrived, one of the plaintiffs, holding a knife he was using to make a sandwich, came out to see what was going on and employers had him arrested for aggravated assault. They then surrounded the plaintiffs’ trailers, brandishing firearms.

Two weeks later, the workers attempted to record their pesticide exposure on cell phone video cameras. Fish Farms managers responded by raiding the workers’ housing, yelling racial slurs, kicking in the door of one home, and wrenching cell phones from some workers’ hands. Fish Farms then fired the workers massively, detained them for many hours on a bus, and carried out what was, in effect, a private deportation by taking the workers to a bus station and insisting they return to Mexico.

Our food choices have a direct effect on those who grow and harvest what we eat around the world. This is why food labeled organic is the right choice. In addition to serious health questions linked to actual residues of toxic pesticides on the food we eat, our food buying decisions support or reject hazardous agricultural practices, protection of farmworkers and farm families.

For more information on the importance of eating organic food for you, workers and the environment, check out Beyond Pesticides’ Eating with a Conscience food guide and organic food program page.

The first bill, L.D. 16, “An Act to Revise Notification Requirements for Pesticides Applications Using Aircraft or Air-carrier Equipment,” would significantly weaken the law by reducing the required notification radius for aerial sprays from ¼ mile (1320 ft.) to just 100 feet. Democrats on the ACF Committee, who oppose the bill, have pointed to previous state research showing that pesticides sprayed aerially on blueberry fields can drift as far as 1500 feet. The bill would also reduce the required notification distance when spraying fruit trees or Christmas trees from 500 ft. to 50 ft.

A second bill, L.D. 228, “An Act to Revise Notification Requirements for Pesticide Application,” would effectively abolish the registry completely. According to the Kennebec Journal, the bill’s sponsor intends for the responsibility for notification to fall to the landowner, as opposed to the farmer or land manager. However, in its repeal of the current law, the bill would also remove any legal requirement mandating that local residents be notified at all.

The state law requiring pesticide notification was first adopted in 2009. However, it was previously weakened by a 2010 law which was designed to lessen the burden on farmers. According to the Maine Board of Pesticides Control, the state body regulating pesticides, the law as it currently stands contains three separate provisions regarding notification of outdoor pesticide applications. For non-agricultural applications, residents can sign up to receive word of any spraying within 250 feet of their property. For aerial spraying, the current requirement is for applicators to notify anyone listed in the registry who lives within ¼ mile of the application site. Finally, for non-aerial agricultural applications, residents who wish to be notified of spraying within 500 feet of their property must initiate contact with the land manager who is spraying and declare their wish to be informed. The applicator is then required by law to notify anyone who has declared such a desire.

In its testimony to the ACF committee in opposition to these bills, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) pointed out the many reasons for why this registry, and others like it around the country, are a necessary service for local residents, especially those who may have certain medical conditions, such as asthma, which make them more sensitive to pesticides in the air. MOFGA also noted that it is often the application technology (air/ground, liquid/gas, etc.), rather than environmental factors such as wind or spray area, that is most significant in determining potential risks. Following this argument it would seem somewhat illogical for there to be a notification distance for aerial spraying (100 ft.) that is less than half that of the distance for residential and neighborhood spraying (250 ft.), as proposed in L.D. 16.

MOFGA has chosen to support a third bill, L.D. 1041, “An Act to Simplify Pest Control Notification,” which seeks to clarify existing regulations regarding setting specific distances for specific technologies, ensure that the registrant list is accurate and up to date, and establish the state registry as the only such system, so that information is kept in one place. The bill also removes specific references to aerial pesticide spraying and applies the relevant rules to all outdoor applications, regardless of application method, providing for enhanced ability of residents to obtain notification.

Researchers looked at Rana sphenocephala (Southern leopard frog) and Osteopilus septentrionalis (Cuban treefrog) in outdoor aquatic mesocosms (experimental water enclosures) with and without the expected environmental concentration as well as twice the amount of chlorothalonil. They also conducted two dose-response experiments on O. septentrionalis, Hyla squirella (squirrel treefrog), H. cinerea (green treefrogs), and R. sphenocephala, evaluating the effects of the fungicide on the stress hormone corticosterone. At the expected environmental concentration levels in the mesocosm experiment, researchers find that chlorothalonil kills 87% of the population. At twice the expected environmental concentration levels, 100% of the species are killed. In the dose-response experiments, at concentrations to which humans are frequently exposed, it increases mortality in frogs and increases levels of corticosterone and changes in immune cells.

Chlorothalonil is a broad-spectrum fungicide originally registered in 1966. The chemical is widely used on field crops such as peanuts, vegetables and fruit (including citrus) and on turf in chemical lawn care products. It is registered for use against plant diseases such as powdery mildew, early and late blight and various rots and molds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers chlorothalonil to be a likely carcinogen. It is a neurotoxin that has been linked to reproductive effects, kidney and liver damage and is a sensitizer/irritant.

In comments submitted in support of the petition, Beyond Pesticides state that such a dangerous chemical has no place on the consumer marketplace. “The nonmedical uses of triclosan are frivolous and dangerous, creating serious long-term health problems and environmental hazards associated with its continued use. EPA has a responsibility to ban consumer triclosan use in a marketplace where safer alternatives are available to manage bacteria” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

Triclosan’s impact on the consumer market has been aided by a false public perception that antibacterial products are best to protect and safeguard against potential harmful bacteria. However, research into triclosan’s health and environmental impacts shows triclosan does more harm than good, despite its widespread consumer use. Studies find that it persists in the environment, has endocrine disrupting properties, accumulates in breast milk and other fatty tissues, and can cause adverse health problems not only in humans, but in wildlife species. Studies released this past year find that triclosan interferes with estrogen metabolism in women and can disrupt a vital enzyme during pregnancy. This is troubling because triclosan is detected in the bodies of pregnant women at levels higher than nonpregnant women.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports document triclosan in the urine of 75% of the U.S. population, with the most recent 2010 update finding that the levels of triclosan in the U.S. population have increased by 42% between 2004 and 2006. Similarly, USDA scientists found that triclosan is only slowly degraded in biosolids and persists at low levels in the environment for long periods of time. Biosolids are typically recycled onto agricultural lands. This persistent chemical can then be taken up and translocated in plants like the soybean, a cornerstone of the American diet. The prevalence of triclosan in the nation’s waterways is a cause for concern since triclosan is converted into several toxic compounds including various forms of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds when exposed to sunlight in an aqueous environment.

Triclosan has exploded onto the marketplace in hundreds of consumer products ranging from antibacterial soaps, deodorants, toothpastes, cosmetics, fabrics, toys, and other household and personal care products. While antibacterial products are marketed as agents that protect and safeguard against potential harmful bacteria, studies conclude that antibacterial soaps show no health benefits over plain soaps.

The petition, filed January 2010, is supported by over 80 environmental and public health groups and cites triclosan’s violation of numerous federal statues including the Clean Water Act, as well as the increasing scientific data on triclosan’s hormone disrupting effects and long-term environmental contamination, have placed triclosan under media and congressional scrutiny.

S. 718 – the so-called “Bill to amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to improve the use of certain registered pesticides,” would ensure that CWA permits are not required for the application of pesticides and amends the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) by stating that no permit shall be required for the use of a pesticide that is registered under FIFRA. This bill would mean that pesticide applicators will be able to discharge pesticides into US waterways without any government oversight. Should this bill pass in the Senate it would mean final legislation can be signed by the President effectively making it law that EPA cannot uphold the CWA when it comes to protecting U.S. waters from pesticides.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the companion legislation, HR 872, by a vote of 292-130. The bill, introduced by Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH), reversed a 2009 Sixth Circuit court decision which ruled that, under FIFRA and CWA, the EPA must require such permits.

The January 2009 Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in National Cotton Council v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, requires pesticide applications to be permitted under the Clean Water Act. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit would be in addition to the less protective label requirements under FIFRA. EPA drafted proposed rules in 2010 outlining the applicability of the permits for pesticide usage. Since then, industry has lobbied hard to get Congress to prevent this measure from going into effect this year.

Sen. Roberts and the other cosponsors of the bill: Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Richard Lugar (R-IN), James Risch (R-ID), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Richard Burr (R-NC), Roy (Blunt R-MO), Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), claim that NPDES permits are burdensome on farmers, even though the permits are only required for a narrow range of uses, and does not affect terrestrial agricultural spraying. NPDES permits will monitor the discharge of pesticides into waterways by local and state authorities, including evaluation of the potential risks discharges might present to aquatic and semi-aquatic species and help safeguard against contaminated fish and drinking water.

Meanwhile, stating that “the provisions of this permit are designed to improve protection of public health and our nation’s water quality,” EPA has posted a pre-publication version of its draft final pesticide general permit. The pre-publication version of the draft final pesticide general permit has concluded interagency review by the Office of Management and Budget. Since EPA is currently engaged in consultation with federal resource agencies under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), this version of the draft final permit does not contain any additional or revised conditions that may result from ongoing ESA consultation.

According to the agency, this draft final permit is not considered a “final agency action.” Even though legislation passed the House of Representatives that would remove the need for the permit, EPA states that it is still providing a preview of the draft final permit to assist states in developing their own permits and for the regulated community to become familiar with the permit’s requirements before it becomes effective.

The draft has not significantly changed from the proposed permit in 2010. The draft version of the final permit covers operators who apply pesticides that result in discharges from the following use patterns: (1) mosquito and other flying insect pest control; (2) weed and algae control; (3) animal pest control; and (4) forest canopy pest control. The permit would not cover 1) non-target spray drift, or 2) discharges of pesticides to waterbodies that are impaired for that pesticide. Agricultural runoff and irrigation return flows are exempt from permitting under the Clean Water Act and, thus, do not require CWA permits. The permit also does not cover, nor is permit coverage required, for pesticide applications that do not result in a point source discharge to waters of the U.S. such as terrestrial applications for the purpose of controlling pests on agricultural crops, forest floors, or range lands.

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