(Beyond Pesticides, February 6, 2008) EPA has submitted a draft Notice of Intent to Cancel (NOIC) for all carbofuran registrations to EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP). Carbofuran is a highly toxic insecticide used on field, fruit and vegetable crops and has long been the subject of controversy and a series of use restrictions that environmentalists have decried as too limited.

EPA has opened a docket containing the materials provided to the SAP that is convening on February 5-8. The SAP will review the scientific assessment underlying EPA’s NOIC for carbofuran and respond to questions posed by the agency related to the impact on health and the environment of the proposal. The docket number is EPA-HQ-OPP-2007-1088; view docket information.This action is the result of an interim reregistration eligibility decision reached by EPA in August 2006, in which the agency found all products containing carbofuran ineligible for reregistration. FIFRA requires that EPA consult the SAP before issuing an NOIC. The SAP meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at an EPA Office of Pesticide Programs conference room at One Potomac Yard in Arlington, Virginia.Carbofuran was first registered in the United States in 1969 and is classified as a restricted use pesticide.

Through an agreement between EPA and the technical registrant in 1991, granular carbofuran has been limited to the sale of 2,500 lbs per year in the U.S. since 1994, and to use on spinach grown for seed, pine seedlings, cucurbits, and bananas only. Additionally, in the late 1990s the technical registrant made a number of changes to labels for flowable carbofuran in order to reduce drinking water and ecological risks of concern. These included reducing application rates and numbers of applications for alfalfa, cotton, corn, potatoes, soybeans, sugarcane, and sunflowers.

Three human studies have been conducted for carbofuran — one oral and two dermal. These studies were reviewed by the agency’s Human Studies Review Board (HSRB) in May 2006. The HSRB concluded that, while informative, the studies are not appropriate for use by the agency in either the individual carbofuran or N-methyl carbamate cumulative risk assessment. The agency did not use any of the human studies in the risk assessment for carbofuran.Carbofuran is a systemic, broad spectrum N-methyl carbamate insecticide and nematicide registered for control of soil and foliar pests on a variety of field, fruit, and vegetable crops. There are no residential uses. Nearly one million pounds of carbofuran are applied annually. Carbofuran is a restricted use pesticide. As with other N-methyl carbamate pesticides, the critical effect of carbofuran for various exposure durations is cholinesterase inhibition; that is, it can overstimulate the nervous system causing nausea, dizziness, confusion, and at very high exposures (e.g. accidents or major spills), respiratory paralysis and death. Similar to other N-methyl carbamate pesticides, inhibition is followed by rapid recovery of cholinesterase. Carbofuran is classified as “Not Likely” to be a human carcinogen.

Carbofuran is very highly toxic to birds on an acute basis, and highly toxic on a sub-acute basis. A chronic effect level could not be established due to the fact that all concentrations tested caused mortality in the test subjects. Carbofuran is highly toxic to mammals on an acute basis. Chronic toxicity testing on laboratory rats showed reduced offspring survival and body weight reductions. Carbofuran is very highly toxic to freshwater and estuarine/marine fish on an acute basis. The available chronic test showed larval survival as the most sensitive endpoint for freshwater fish and embryo hatching as the most sensitive endpoint for estuarine/marine fish. Carbofuran is considered to be very highly toxic to freshwater and estuarine/marine invertebrates on an acute basis. Chronic tests showed reproductive effects. Further information on carbofuran is available on EPA’s Web site.The SAP meeting is being held at Environmental Protection Agency Conference Center, Lobby Level, One Potomac Yard (South Bldg.), 2777 Crystal Dr., Arlington, VA 22202.

Comments. Submit your comments, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPP-2007-1088, by one of the following methods:
Ӣ Federal eRulemaking Portal. Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
Ӣ Mail: Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) Regulatory Public Docket (7502P), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460-0001.
”¢ Delivery: OPP Regulatory Public Docket (7502P), Environmental Protection Agency, Rm. S-4400, One Potomac Yard (South Bldg.), 2777 S. Crystal Dr., Arlington, VA. Deliveries are only accepted during the Docket’s normal hours of operation (8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays). Special arrangements should be made for deliveries of boxed information. The Docket Facility telephone number is (703) 305-5805.

Instructions. Direct your comments to docket ID number EPA-HQ-OPP-2007-1088. If your comments contain any information that you consider to be CBI or otherwise protected, please contact the DFO listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT to obtain special instructions before submitting your comments. EPA’s policy is that all comments received will be included in the docket without change and may be made available on-line, including any personal information provided, unless the comment includes information claimed to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. See previous Beyond Pesticides’ stories on carbofuran.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 5, 2008) Whether you love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is less than ten days away. Millions of flowers and chocolates will soon be bought and given to loved ones. Unfortunately, these gifts come at a cost much higher than the one on the price tag. Conventional roses and chocolate sold in the United States are produced using toxic pesticides, with little regard for the workers or the environment.The United States imports about 70 percent of its flowers from foreign countries, mostly from Ecuador and Columbia. Roses analyzed in the past few years were found to contain a myriad of harmful pesticides that ranged from organophosphates such as Dimethoate, carbamate- Aldicarb, to organochlorines like Captan, Bravo, Tedion, Iprodione and Procymidone.

If you don’t have access to organic flowers or chocolate, try other creative ways of expressing your love. A homemade card or picture collage, a poem, or a special homemade dinner are all ways to show someone you care while doing minimal harm to the environment and society. Happy Valentine’s Day!

(Beyond Pesticides, February 4, 2008) Following on the recommendation of a California Legislature-supported report in 2006, a new report (January 17, 2008) prepared by the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA, reinforces the earlier call for a statewide initiative to adopt comprehensive efforts to eliminate hazardous chemical use and reduce billions of dollars of associated costs from pollution and chemical-related diseases. The report, Green Chemistry: Cornerstone to a Sustainable California, calls on California to lead the nation in implementing a comprehensive approach to the management of chemicals and products.Policy recommendations include: (i) Passing new laws to remedy the insufficient data available on the toxicity of chemicals so California businesses, regulators and consumers can make informed choices about the products they use; (ii) Providing California agencies with a new legal framework to enable them to act when there are reasonable concerns about a product’s safety, even when complete hazard or tracking data are unavailable; and (iv) Investing in the design of chemicals, materials and manufacturing processes that are inherently safer for humans.Some of these recommendations echo the 2006 UC report to the California Legislature on green chemistry policy, which contributed to the introduction of new state legislation in 2007 to require improved reporting on the sale of high quantity chemicals and reductions in some uses of the most toxic chemicals. That legislation is expected to be reintroduced in 2008.

According to the report, serious gaps in existing laws regulating the production and use of hazardous chemicals fail to protect public health and the environment. As a result of this inadequate oversight, chemical and pollution-related diseases among children and workers in California cost the state’s insurers, businesses and families an estimated $2.6 billion in direct and indirect costs, says the report, which includes a set of recommended policy reforms for the state.

In 2004, more than 200,000 California workers were diagnosed with deadly, chronic diseases – such as cancer or emphysema – attributable to chemical exposures in the workplace, according to the report. Another 4,400 died as a result of those diseases. The new findings, based upon well-established methodology for analyzing economic impact, indicate that those diseases resulted in $1.4 billion in both direct medical costs and indirect costs that include lost wages and benefits.

An additional $1.2 billion in direct and indirect costs is attributed to 240,000 cases of preventable childhood diseases in California related to environmental exposure to chemical substances, the report says.

The California Environmental Protection Agency commissioned the UC Berkeley and UCLA Centers for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) to prepare the report. COEH is a multi-disciplinary research program based at the UC campuses of Berkeley, Davis and San Francisco in Northern California, and at UC Irvine and UCLA in Southern California. Additional funding for the report came from the UC Office of the President, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This report, for the first time, puts cost estimates on the consequences for Californians of current chemical and product management policies,” said Dr. John Balmes, COEH director, UC Berkeley professor of environmental health sciences and UCSF professor of medicine. “California has shown that creating new jobs and investment opportunities can go hand in hand with protecting human health and the environment. We have been doing this with vehicle emissions and energy use, and this new report makes it obvious that we will need to do the same with chemicals and products.”

In May, 2007, Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, which supported the report, announced The Cal/EPA Green Chemistry Initiative, as a collaborative approach for identifying options to significantly reduce the impacts of toxic chemicals on public health and the environment. The agency defines the Initiative as providing recommendations for developing a consistent means for evaluating risk, reducing exposure, encouraging less-toxic industrial processes, and identifying safer, non-chemical alternatives.

In a memo to her directors initiating the Green Chemistry Initiative, Secretary Adams wrote: “In the absence of a unifying approach, interest groups and policy makers have been attempting to take these issues on one-by-one. Product by product, chemical by chemical, and now even city by city approaches can often have unintended, even regrettable consequences, even with the best of intentions. I believe we need to develop a coordinated, comprehensive strategy”¦.”

The report is authored by Michael Wilson and Dr. Megan Schwarzman, both COEH research scientists at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health; Timothy Malloy, professor at the UCLA School of Law; Elinor Fanning, COEH assistant director of research at UCLA; and Peter Sinsheimer, a COEH affiliate and director of the Pollution Prevention Education & Research Center at Occidental College.

See UC Berkeley press release.

See CAL EPA press release.

See report.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 1, 2008) Two studies of nutrient levels in the Gulf of Mexico, one by the United States Geological Survey and the other by Yale and Louisiana State University researchers, have recently been published. Both reveal that nutrient levels in the Mississippi watershed have risen significantly, and that the growing “dead zone” in the Gulf can largely be attributed to changes in agricultural practices in the last half-century.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2008) A study to be published in the February 2008 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives finds that children who eat a conventional diet of food produced with chemical-intensive practices carry residues of organophosate pesticides that are reduced or eliminated when they switch to an organic diet. The study is entitled “Dietary Intake and Its Contribution to Longitudinal Organophosphorus Pesticide Exposure in Urban/Suburban Children” (Chensheng Lu, Dana B. Barr, Melanie A. Pearson, and Lance A. Waller) and includes authors from Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, and the National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.According to the authors, “The objective of this article is to present the data of assessing young urban/suburban children’s longitudinal exposure to OP [organophosphate] pesticides in a group [of] young children participating in the Children Pesticide Exposure Study (CPES). The results from this study identify not only the predominant source of OP pesticide exposure but also the profile of exposures in children that are vital in formulating the strategies, both from the regulatory policy and personal behavior change perspectives, in reducing children’s exposures to OP pesticides.”

The study design included 23 children, male and female, from the Seattle area, ages 3-11 years who only consumed conventional diets and were recruited for a one-year study conducted in 2003-2004. Of the 23, 19 completed the study. Children switched to organic diets for five consecutive days in the summer and fall sampling seasons. The authors measured specific urinary metabolites for malathion, chlorpyrifos and other OP pesticides in urine samples collected twice daily for a period of 7, 12, or 15 consecutive days during each of the four seasons. According to the authors, “By substituting organic fresh fruits and vegetables for corresponding conventional food items, the median urinary metabolite concentrations were reduced to non-detected or close to non-detected levels for malathion and chlorpyrifos at the end of 5-day organic diet intervention period in both summer and fall seasons. We also observed a seasonal effect on the OP urinary metabolite concentrations, and this seasonality is correspondent to the consumption of fresh produce throughout the year.” And, “Considering the lack of residential use of OP pesticides among the families of CPES-WA children, consumption of conventional diets is likely to be the sole contributing factor to the seasonality effect of pesticide exposures.”

The authors point out that few studies evaluate the longitudinal exposure to pesticides that all children experience. According to the authors, “Most of the studies published in the literature have either targeted children living in agricultural environments or have used a cross-sectional design with spot sample collection.”

The authors raise concerns about inadequate attention being given by regulators to chronic low-level exposures to pesticides, such as those found in their study. They point out that, “Using spot biomarkers [one-time measurement of urinary metabolites] of OP pesticide exposure to examine the link between adverse health outcomes and cumulative OP pesticide exposure is obviously an inadequate approach.”

Corresponding author: Chensheng Lu, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, (404)727-2131, (404)727-8744 (fax), [email protected].

(Beyond Pesticides, January 30, 2008) A survey of 31 Australian strawberry growers conducted by a consumer watchdog revealed that almost all conventionally grown strawberries contained residues of pesticides. Several samples of the strawberries tested contained pesticide residues that exceeded the legal limit, and some even tested positive for pesticides banned for use on strawberries.Tests revealed that that 17 of the 27 samples of conventionally grown strawberries registered residues of at least two types of pesticide or fungicide. Four samples had traces of four different chemicals on the skin that had penetrated the fruit’s flesh as well.

Choice, the chemical watchdog group that commissioned the survey, described the findings as alarming and calls on the Australian Government to remedy years of neglect over pesticide regulation, and to require independent, mandatory testing of all fruits and vegetables.

“Analysis shows strawberries are more likely to have pesticide residues than other fresh fruit, and washing does not necessarily remove them,” said Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn.
“Strawberries contain lots of nutrients but unfortunately they also tend to contain residues of pesticide”¦ [T]here are some concerns about long-term exposure to a mixture of different pesticides.”

Jo Immig, the coordinator of National Toxics Network Inc, said the findings showed that the regulation of pesticides in Australia had fallen woefully behind. “The results ”¦ should alarm customers, and in particular parents of small children, who are at far greater risk of damage from pesticide exposures,” she said.

Australian strawberries are not the only ones to have recorded significant amounts of pesticide residues. In 2007, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Pesticide Data Program released its latest annual summary detailing pesticide residues in the U.S. food supply. In fruits and vegetables, 73 percent of fresh and 61 percent of processed produce had detectable residues. On strawberries, at least 30 different pesticide resides were detected, along with 31 in grapes, 36 in apples, and 43 in lettuce. The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) also reported 2006 pesticide use statistics, which showed strawberry growers had increased their reliance on the highly toxic, ozone depleting fumigant methyl bromide (See Daily News https://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=239)

Studies have shown pesticide residues are higher in children that are fed conventional versus organic foods, and that an effective way to reduce a child’s exposure to pesticide residues on food is to change their diet to organic. Children with organic diets contain significantly less metabolites of toxic pesticides in their blood and urine.

TAKE ACTION: Buy organic foods for yourself and your family whenever possible. If organic foods are not easily accessible to you due to cost or distribution, consider buying organic for the foods you eat the most. To make sure your food is organic, look for the USDA Organic label.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

(Beyond Pesticides, January 29, 2008) University of Cambridge scientists say there may be a link between persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including pesticides, and Type 2 Diabetes. The Cambridge scientists are advocating additional research into the little understood links between environmental pollution and adult onset diabetes.

In the most recent edition of the journal Lancet, Oliver Jones, Ph.D., and Julian Griffin, Ph.D., highlight the need to research the possible link between persistent organic pollutants (POPs, a group which includes many pesticides) and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes.

In their commentary, Dr. Jones and Dr. Griffin cite peer reviewed research including that of D. Lee, et al, which demonstrated a very strong relationship between the levels of POPs in blood, particularly organochlorine compounds, and the risk of type 2 diabetes.

“Of course correlation does not automatically imply causation,” says Dr. Jones. “But if there is indeed a link, the health implications could be tremendous. At present there is very limited information. Research into adult onset diabetes currently focuses on genetics and obesity; there has been almost no consideration for the possible influence of environmental factors such as pollution.”

Interestingly, in the Lee study an association between obesity and diabetes was absent in people with low concentrations of POPs in their blood. In other words, individuals were more at risk of diabetes if they were thin with high levels of POPs in their blood than if they were overweight but with low levels of POPs.

Dr. Jones said, “I think research should be carried out to first test the hypothesis that POPs exposure can cause diabetes, perhaps using cell or tissue cultures, so we know for sure if this can occur. Assuming POPs can have this effect, the next step would be to try and develop a method of treatment for those people who might be affected.”

POPs came into prominence as effective pesticides with the introduction of DDT in the 1940s. However, many of these chemicals, including DDT, fell out of favor after they were blamed for the declining number of wild birds and other animals and negative human health effects. As the compounds biodegrade slowly, they continue to find their way into the food chain and ultimately into the blood streams of individuals even though many of these toxins were banned many years ago. Additionally, these compounds can persist in body fat for very long periods of time following exposure.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 28, 2008) Reclaiming Our Healthy Future: Political change to protect the next generation, the 26th National Pesticide Forum, will be held March 14-16 at the University of California, Berkeley. Register now to pay the pre-registration rate.

Recent speaker additions include Marla Cone, author of Silent Snow and environmental journalist with the Los Angles Times; Paul Saoke, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility Kenya; and Ted Schettler MD, science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. These speakers will be joining a line-up which already includes Arturo Rodriguez (UFW President), Devra Davis, Ph.D. (author and University of Pittsburgh professor of epidemiology) and Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D. (UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology). Also, actress Kaiulani Lee will perform A Sense of Wonder, her one-woman play based on the life and works of Rachel Carson.

The conference themes are pesticides and health with a particular focus on  children and workers, a vision for a just and sustainable food system, and creating political change. A tentative schedule of events is now available on the Forum webpage.

Marla Cone is one of the nation’s premier environmental journalists. She has 22 years of experience covering environmental issues, including 18 years at the Los Angeles Times. In 2005 she published Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic. What she discovered while researching the book was shocking: Tons of dangerous chemicals and pesticides from the U.S, Europe, and Asia are being carried to the Arctic by winds and waves and amplified in the ocean’s food web with dramatic impacts on Inuit communities. Ms. Cone has twice won a national award for environmental reporting.

Paul Saoke is executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR-Kenya) and vice-president of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment. He participated actively in negotiation of the Stockholm Convention and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, and is currently working on two books on DDT and Malaria in Africa. He is currently the Vicechair of the National Steering Committee for the implementation of Stockholm Convention in Kenya, and chairs the DDT expert committee. He oversaw the development of Kenya’s national action plan on DDT.

Ted Schettler MD is science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. He has a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and an MPH from Harvard University. He practiced medicine in New England for over 30 years . Dr. Schettler is co-author of Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment and In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development. He has published a number of articles on related topics in peer-reviewed journals and has served on advisory committees of the US EPA and National Academy of Sciences. Speaker bios, basic information and registration details are available online.  

(Beyond Pesticides, January 25, 2008) Officials with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) recently released their 2008 plan for eradicating the light brown apple moth from the Central Valley area of the state. In 2007, a state of emergency was declared to facilitate quicker action to control the moths, as CDFA reports that the infestation is spread throughout nine counties. The agency tried to disrupt the moths breeding patterns by spraying a pheremone, Checkmate LBAM-F, in several different rounds, but the problem remains. As a result, CDFA has a variety of strategies planned to wipe out the moths this year.

“The primary way to eradicate this pest remains aerial spraying,” according to CDFA spokesman Steve Lyle. “The expectation is that the program will move forward with that in mind in 2008.” However, on January 22, officials said that spraying will be postponed until late spring or early summer, when a better product has been found. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently conducting trials in New Zealand to determine which formulation is most effective against the moths. One of these forumulations would last longer than 30 days in the environment, allowing less frequent aerial applications in California. According to CDFA’s 2008 “Questions and Answers” sheet, “The products under consideration for aerial treatment contain the same pheremone but use different bio-degradable carriers.”

In the meantime, possible options include pheremone twist-ties (which will be applied in February), ground treatment with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) and spinosad, used in “organically approved” forumulations, pheremone and permethrin applications on utility poles (eight feet above the ground), and the release of stingless trichogramma wasps, whose larvae feed on moth larvae. The latter two options have been used in New Zealand, where the light brown apple moth has spread beyond the possibility of eradication. A CDFA statement said, “These wasps will not bother over-wintering monarch butterflies and they would not be released threatened or endangered plants or butterflies or moths.”

The planned continuation of aerial spraying remains a target of local groups’ ire. Helping Our Peninsula’s Environment (HOPE), which, in October, led anti-spray litigation that resulted in a temporarily halt to spraying, expressed its disappointment over the announcement. “It shows their absolute hostility to anything but what they have already decided,” said HOPE’s David Dilworth. “They refuse to look at alternatives.” Nan Wishner, chair of the Albany Integrated Pest Management Task Force, emphasized, “The concern is that [the product] is used with aerial spraying.” In the first rounds of spraying, there were some reports of residents reacting negatively to Checkmate. The Albany City Council unanimously opposed the spray, and Councilmember Farid Javandel said, “Even a few people being hurt is not acceptable.”

Sources: CDFA Light Brown Apple Moth project page, The Berkeley Daily Planet, The Monterey County Herald, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, Central Valley Business Times

(Beyond Pesticides, January 24, 2008) The first state bill on genetically engineered (GE) crops passed through its first committee in February, 2007, and the latest revision is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow, January 24. While AB 541 has been pared down considerably from its first and most progressive incarnation, it includes two very important measures to protect farmers whose crops are contaminated by nearby GE fields.

The first provision states, “A farmer is not liable for the breach of a seed contract or for patent infringement if a product, in which the seed labeler, or patent holder or licensee, has rights, is possessed by the farmer or found on real property owned or occupied by the farmer and the presence of the product is de minimis or not intended by the farmer.” A frequent criticism of Monsanto and the company’s overwhelming market share of seed is its tendency to sue farmers who did not plant GE seed, but whose fields were contaminated by a neighbor’s GE variety. In a 2005 report by the Center for Food Safety, Executive Director Andrew Kimbrell said, “These lawsuits and settlements are nothing less than corporate extortion of American Farmers.” (See Daily News from January 27, 2005 for more information on such “breach of contract” suits.)

The second provision of AB 541 calls for the establishment of official protocol for patent holders to follow when collecting samples for such a “breach of contract” investigation. That protocol requires the patent holder to “Notify the farmer in writing of the allegation that breach of contract or patent infringement has ocurred and request permission to enter upon the farmer’s land” and to “Obtain the written permission of the farmer.” Furthermore, costs incurred in the collection of evidence are paid by the patent holder, and further protocol for sampling procedures may be established.

This revision is downsized from its 2007 version, which, in addition to protecting farmers from suit, included provisions that gave farmers compensation for losses due to GE contamination, established a GE crop notification process to enable farmers to trace contamination to the manufacturer, and prohibited open-field pharmaceutical GE crop production. However, the current version has won the support of the California Farm Bureau, which has never before endorsed GE legislation in the state. To follow the legislation’s history, click here, or view the summary and sample support letter by Californians for GE-Free Agriculture.

TAKE ACTION: If you live in California, contact your Assembly Member no later than Friday, January 25th, by fax or phone. You can find contact information at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html.

Source: The Ethicurean

(Beyond Pesticides, January 23, 2008) Agribusiness giants Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto have successfully persuaded the state of Minnesota to reconsider their water-quality limit for the chemical, acetochlor. Scientists representing the industry presented their own studies to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and explained that the state’s original draft limit for acetochlor was too strict.

Despite three years of research conducted by the state, scientists from Dow and Monsanto presented officials at the MCPA with six published studies- one of them in Chinese- which they claimed were overlooked by the state when determining the standard for acetochlor in waterways. As a result, the MPCA has decided to allow 3.6 parts per billion of acetochlor in rivers, more than twice the concentration of the 1.7 parts per billion previously proposed. As a result, three of five streams classified as ”˜impaired’ by acetochlor, including a popular trout stream in southeastern Minnesota, can no longer be considered polluted.

Some environmental advocacy groups question whether the MPCA gave favorable treatment to the pesticide makers, claiming that other research that suggest that the chemical can cause ecological damage have not been seriously considered.

“It looks like there’s a double standard, that industry can come in and suggest changes without putting it up for new review and comment,” said Janette Brimmer, legal director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

Acetochlor, widely used in Minnesota, is a herbicide that kills weeds before they can start growing in cornfields and is marketed as Harness, Surpass and Keystone, among other brands. The chemical, however, washes off from fields and into streams, rivers and lakes. According to former hydrologist for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Paul Wotzka, acetochlor started showing up in waterways soon after it was first marketed in the state in 1994. Concentrations have increased since then as corn cultivation and herbicide use increased on surrounding lands.

In 2002 the Agriculture Department asked the MCPA to develop a standard for acetochlor. Last July, the state determined that acetochlor was contaminating a well-known trout stream, as well as four other streams. The limit of 1.7 parts per billion, proposed by the MCPA would have been the first legal limit in the nation for acetochlor. However, industry officials found this limit to be too strict. They are also calling the new limit of 3.6 parts per billion unnecessary and scientifically unjustified.

In 1994, the US EPA approved the registration application proposed by the Acetochlor Registration Partnership (ARP) for the use of acetochlor on corn. This partnership includes Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences. The EPA imposed several restrictions and conditions on the use of acetochlor to limit potential risks to human health and the environment. This included several early-warning measures to ensure that ground and surface water resources remain protected.

The Agency has classified acetochlor as a probable human carcinogen and it is listed as an endocrine disruptor in the European Union. The Agency believes that the potential for exposure in drinking water is significant, with degradation products also present at significant levels in many ground and surface water sources of drinking water.

The continued registration of acetochlor is dependent on compliance with the registration agreement. For more information on the regulatory status of acetachlor, please visit http://www.epa.gov/oppefed1/aceto/

Source: Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune

(Beyond Pesticides, January 22, 2008) Triclosan, a very common antibacterial chemical, is present in the plasma and breast milk of nursing mothers, according to a study by Swedish researchers. Every one of the 36 mothers tested positive for triclosan levels in their bodies, and the concentrations were clearly and significantly higher in the exposed group (i.e., those that use triclosan-containing products) than in the control group. This does not come as a surprise since triclosan is widely used in personal care products””including soaps, deodorants, and toothpaste””as well as plastics and textiles. Although there was high variability within groups, even members of the control group had triclosan present in their plasma, indicating that there are other significant sources of exposure outside of hygiene products.

Triclosan is not removed from wastewater by conventional treatment processes and has been found in both wastewater effluent and sewage sludge. The authors of Triclosan in plasma and milk from Swedish nursing mothers and their exposure via personal care products say that the significance of the presence of triclosan in plasma and breast milk of nursing mothers is not easily deduced and that the health effects, especially the long-term effects of chronic exposure, of triclosan are not fully known. They mention several triclosan-enyzme reactions, such as the capacity to inhibit the iodothyronine hormone sulfotransferase activity in rat liver cytosol in vitro. The findings suggest that triclosan may exert adverse effects on biological systems by interfering with the biotransformation of other exogenous and endogenous compounds. Other studies have found health and environmental effects due to triclosan, ranging from skin irritation, allergy susceptibility, bacterial and compounded antibiotic resistance, and dioxin contamination to destruction of fragile aquatic ecosystems. The study on nursing mothers found the triclosan concentration was lower in milk than in plasma on an individual basis. As a result, the infant is exposed to a considerably smaller dose of triclosan via the breast milk compared to the dose in the mother, so direct contact with products that contain triclosan may be more important for determining exposure of infants.

Various contaminants have been found in the breast milk of both humans and animals, and triclosan has been detected in the urine of three in four people. The effectiveness of antibacterial soaps has been widely disputed by researchers. Triclosan levels in plasma and in breast milk may vary widely from country to country and are possibly influenced by the advice given by national health authorities on the use of products containing disinfectants. The EPA will be publishing an analysis of triclosan in a report Re: Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products due out at the end of 2008. For more information or to voice your concern about triclosan, contact Rick Stevens, EPA, at: 202-566-1135 or [email protected].

(Beyond Pesticides, January 18, 2008) The second circuit federal appellate court on Thursday will hear a challenge to an EPA rule that allows people to be used as guinea pigs in tests of toxic pesticides. The lawsuit, NRDC V. EPA, was brought before the court by a coalition of environmental, farmworker and health groups in 2006. The groups contend that the agency’s human testing rule violates a law passed by Congress in 2005 mandating strict ethical and scientific protections for pesticide testing on humans. At the time, the House Committee on Government Reform found “the actual experiments being considered by EPA are deeply flawed and rife with ethical violations.”

“Testing poisons on people is unethical and against the law,” said Shelley Davis, Beyond Pesticides board member and deputy director of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy and education center for migrant and seasonal farmworkers, based in Washington, D.C. “The EPA should stop accepting these industry funded tests.”

Previous human testing by industry produced serious ethical and scientific problems including one instance in which a company told participants they were eating vitamins, not toxic pesticides. In other instances citied in the lawsuit, researchers ignored the adverse health effects reported by the participants.

“The only people who get what they want out of these immoral tests are the chemical companies,” said Aaron Colangelo, a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) senior attorney representing the petitioners. “Their testing methods are questionable at best, the only purpose they serve is to weaken pesticide safety standards, and ultimately the people who grow and harvest our food suffer the consequences. This practice must end.”

In 2005, Congress passed a law strictly forbidding the use of pregnant women and minors in pesticide tests. A loophole in the new EPA rule will allow testing of pregnant women, infants and children. Low-income people and students are the most likely to participate in these dangerous experiments, for which they usually receive a few hundred dollars. However, participants injured in the studies are not guaranteed medical care outside of the testing period.

The groups contend the EPA rule violates international ethical standards enumerated in the 1947 Nuremburg Code by permitting the EPA to set safety standards based on tests conducted with only a handful of healthy people. In most tests, participants are not representative of the U.S. population, the test period is scientifically problematic, and group size is not large enough to detect potential harmful health effects.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of NRDC, Pesticide Action Network North America, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Physicians for Social Responsibility, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, Pineros y Campesinos del Noreste, and Migrant Clinicians Network. Attorneys for the petitioners are NRDC, Farmworker Justice and Earthjustice.

Human testing, which was stopped by a moratorium in 1998, was reintroduced in 2003 by a court ruling on a pesticide industry suit. Following the reintroduction of human studies, EPA began to develop a rule for such testing. This came despite flaws found in such studies, and took into account industry pressure to approve testing in children, among other allowances.EPA released its final rule in 2006, despite the Congressional report decrying human testing in 2005. At the time, committee member Rep. Henry Waxman stated, “What we’ve found is that the human pesticide experiments that the Bush Administration intends to use to set federal pesticide policies are rife with ethical and scientific defects.”Beyond Pesticides rejects human testing as unethical and dangerous to both test participants and agricultural workers exposed to toxic, approved pesticides. For more information on the timeline of human testing regulation, click here. For more information on the lawsuit, view the Petitioners’ brief and Reply brief.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 17, 2008) Newly elected members of the Council of the District of Columbia brought the issue of reforming pesticide law to the Council yesterday in a hearing on a right-to-know bill, Pesticide Consumer Notification Amendment Act of 2007, Bill 17-493. The bill would be the first time pesticide law in the District has been amended since the law was passed in 1977. Pest control industry representatives did not oppose the bill, but urged the sponsors to shift the burden of notification of apartment building residents to the landlord.

While the bill is a notification amendment that requires licensed pesticide applicators to provide hazard information to potential customers and those in multi-unit buildings who would be exposed, the bill’s sponsors throughout the hearing cited the need for overhauling the law to stop the use of hazardous pesticides in the District. The hearing was held in the Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs by Chairperson Mary Cheh. When told that it was working on these issues by the Department of the Environment, which oversees pesticide regulation and enforcement, the Council members said that was not good enough, and seemed unconvinced by the argument that pesticide restrictions are best set by the regulatory agency, not the legislative branch.

Beyond Pesticides’ executive director, Jay Feldman, testified at the hearing in support of expanding the bill to ensure that people are fully warned before purchasing pest control services or pesticide products. Mr. Feldman noted that the bill’s requirement to provide consumers and residents with the pesticide label, Material Safety Data Sheet, and product manufacturer information needed to be supplemented with a clear warning statement, which was proposed in the testimony.

The testimony covers three areas: (1) the failures of the current system of disclosure of toxic pesticide hazards to consumers and those exposed to pesticides; (2) the limitations of the regulatory system that registers pesticides and makes these chemicals available in commerce; and, (3) the best way to ensure that people are duly warned and provided with complete information to make an informed choice to protect their health and the health of their families.

The testimony provided a history on consumers being misled by pesticide and pest control industry practices, which was documented by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 1986 and again in 1990. The testimony says,

To give historical perspective to this problem and illustrate that this legislation is indeed on the right track, we can go back to 1986 when the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report entitled, Nonagricultural Pesticides: Risks and Regulation, and found that, “The general public receives limited and misleading information on pesticide hazards.” Four years later, in March 1990, GAO published another report on the subject, Lawn Care Pesticides: Risks Remain Uncertain While Prohibited Safety Claims Continue, and found “the same situation.” Today, 18 years later, commercial pesticide applicators have become more sophisticated and we now call it “greenwashing.” However, you can be sure that customers continue to receive the same message, the ones that GAO documented, characterizing toxic pesticides as “completely safe for humans.”

The testimony explains the deficiencies with the federal regulatory process at EPA, and the fact that the states and the District of Columbia rely on the agency’s decisions and pesticide productive labels that are not protective of health and the environment. Mr. Feldman said, “The difficulty, from a public health perspective, is that the inadequate regulatory system, allowing widespread use of poisons that are more often than not unnecessary, results in a pesticide product label that is also inadequate, or fails in restricting use or conveying hazard information.”

The hearing addressed a number of issues outside the scope of the bill, particularly the issue of inadequately trained commercial applicators who are “working under the supervision” of certified applicators off-site. The Council members were shocked to learn that commercial applicators, not fully trained and tested, were allowed under the law to go into homes and apply poisons. As the hearing went on for three hours, the Council members grew more and more outraged and skeptical of the statutory and regulatory apparatus in place to protect people and the environment.

TAKE ACTION: To submit written testimony in support of pesticide right-to-know and the restriction of pesticides in the nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C., email comments to [email protected] or fax comments to Ms. Cynthia Brock-Smith, Secretary to the Council, Room 5 of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004, 202-347-3070. At this point, the record will close at the end of the business day on Friday, January 18.