WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency's review of a group of pesticides that environmentalists say are particularly harmful to children is being called into question by a report from a panel of scientific advisers.
But the EPA says its assessment of the cumulative risks of using 30 organophosphorus pesticides in various combinations is unfinished and more studies are expected during the next month and a half.
"We're going to look very carefully at the panel's recommendations and new data," EPA spokesman Dave Deegan said Wednesday. "One of the key factors is we're actually expecting quite a few significant studies that directly relate to this issue to be submitted in the very near future."
The independent five-member panel suggested the EPA had prematurely concluded all but two of the pesticides were safe without an adequate review. The panel's conclusions, made public this week, found the EPA used an inadequate margin of safety for fetuses, infants and children when it reached its preliminary decision to approve the chemicals' use.
EPA used a threefold factor, rather than the tenfold default safety factor generally required by the Food Quality Protection Act. The agency set people's maximum exposure to the chemicals at 1 percent of what is considered safe for animals, then added the additional threefold default safety factor for children.
"These panel members concluded that the confidence with the available data was not sufficient to assure adequate protection with less than the 10-fold FQPA safety factor," said the panel's report, which was based on a two-day meeting in Arlington, Va., in late June.
The EPA is required to provide data on the effects of each chemical on the developing nervous system of animals. All of the information from the review was based on tests by industry -- but the agency only had data on six of the 30 pesticides, the panel found.
The EPA review was prompted by a settlement agreement from a lawsuit brought by Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. NRDC senior scientist Jennifer Sass says the panel's report exposes the review's sloppiness.
"These scientists have basically chucked this back at the EPA and said, 'Not good enough. Do it again,"' Sass said. "This is not an adequate margin of safety and this will not protect children."
EPA Assistant Administrator Stephen L. Johnson signed off in June on the safety of all but two of 30 organophosphorus pesticides the agency studied to see whether they are unreasonably dangerous to human health when combined.
Johnson, who oversees the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, has said the agency might seek to ban two of the 30 pesticides -- dichlorvos, or DDVP, which is used in pest strips in homes, and dimethoate, which is sprayed on dozens of fruits and vegetables -- because they can cause headaches, nausea, weakness and even death.
The review stems from a settlement in a 1999 case brought by NRDC, environmentalists and farm workers, who challenged a missed deadline for reviewing the most dangerous pesticides, including those used in foods most eaten by children.
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |