EPA Scientists Protest Pending Pesticide Approvals
Further to the Notes
to the ETC Pesticide meeting (2006/05/24), Here is
more fodder, as if more was needed to demonstrate, how the regulatory bodies
have been usurped by vested interests and why they have pretty much lost their
credibility.
Pesticide industry rhetoric based on regulatory approvals is now just that
rhetoric; and it is time to open our eyes and reject any of these toxins from
our environment.
Chris Gupta
http://tinyurl.com/rgf5n
----------------------------
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release (www.peer.org)
For Immediate Release: May 25, 2006
Contact: Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337
EPA SCIENTISTS
PROTEST PENDING PESTICIDE APPROVALS Unacceptable Risk to
Children and Political Pressure on Scientists Decried
See:
Report Outlines Hazards to Children Posed by Toxic Exposures
Commission urges North American nations mitigate environmental risks to
children
On August 3, 2006, EPA faces a deadline for issuing final tolerance approval
for 20 organophosphate
and carbamate pesticides. In a letter dated May 24, 2006, leaders of three
unions (American Federation of Government Employees, National Treasury
Employees Union and Engineers and Scientists of California) representing 9,000
scientists, risk managers and other specialists asked EPA Administrator Stephen
Johnson to either adopt maximum exposure protections for these agents or take
them off the market.
EPA Scientists Protest Pending Pesticide Approvals
Organophosphates,
derived from World War II-era nerve agents, are banned in
In their letter, the EPA scientists charge that agency “risk assessments cannot
state with confidence the degree to which any exposure of a fetus, infant or
child to a pesticide will or will not adversely affect their neurological
development.” In addition, the scientists contend that –
EPA Scientists Protest Pending Pesticide Approvals
* “Our colleagues in the
Pesticide Program feel besieged by political pressure exerted by Agency
officials perceived to be too closely aligned with the pesticide industry and
former EPA officials now representing the pesticide and agricultural
community”;
* “In the rush to meet the August 2006 …deadline, many steps in the risk
assessment and risk management process are being abbreviated or eliminated in
violation of the principles of scientific integrity and objectivity…”; and
* The prevailing “belief among managers in the Pesticide and Toxics Programs
[is] that regulatory decisions should only be made after reaching full
consensus with the regulated pesticide and chemicals industry.”
Notwithstanding the scientific uncertainty and controversy, EPA has announced
that is approving one of the most toxic agents, dichlorvos or DDVP, for
household use in pet flea collars and no-pest strips.
“Our top public scientists are morally and professionally compromised by the
Bush administration partnership with the chemical industry,” stated PEER
Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing, for example, to EPA’s rush to embrace
testing of pesticides and other chemicals on human subjects for commercial
purposes. “The fact that this letter had to be sent at all is an utter disgrace
but, even more disgraceful, is the likelihood that this warning will be
disregarded by an agency that is supposed to be protecting public health and
the environment.”
###
Read the EPA
scientists’ letter of protest
See more information on
organophosphates and carbamates
Look at the EPA
Inspector General report on the inability to assess child neurotoxicity
Trace the growing
corporate role in EPA research
Revisit EPA drive for
human subject experimentation