EPA finally demands that pesticide makers disclose the secret chemicals in their poisons.
It has taken more than a decade of wrangling but the Environmental Protection Agency has finally said pesticide makers must disclose the hidden ingredients in their poisons.
Yesterday, the agency said it was drafting a new rule which will require manufacturers to fess up and identify the estimated 4,000 different “inert” materials in their pesticides.
Marla Cone, the Editor in Chief of Environmental Health News, writes that inert ingredients as anything added to a pesticide that does not kill or control a pest.
“In some cases, those ingredients are toxic and cites formaldehyde, bisphenol A, sulfuric acid, toluene, benzene and styrene as some of the ingredients that are allowed in pesticides but that are not identified on labels.
Pesticide manufacturers and their lobbyists have been voracious and successful in stalling disclosure of these chemicals.
They said they are worried about disclosing proprietary or trade secrets, but health and environmental activists say the companies really fear how the public will react to the information on what’s actually in the widely used pest, weed and fungal poisons.
For example, Cone wrote that a recent study found that one inert substance, called polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, used in the popular herbicide Roundup is more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself.
Year after year, EPA denied or ignored petitions from public health and environmental activists and the attorneys general in at least ten states seeking disclosure of the chemicals. But now the new administration says it plans to draft a rule that will increase transparency, protect public health and encourage companies to replace toxic substances.
“EPA believes disclosure of inert ingredients on product labels is important to consumers who want to be aware of all potentially toxic chemicals, both active and inert ingredients, in pesticide products,” according to the agency’s website.
Jay Vroom, the boss of CropLife America, which is the public voice of the pesticide manufacturers, said he found the EPA decision “just baffling.”
He again told EHN’s Cone that his clients are concerned they will be revealing confidential business information, or trade secrets, about their formulas.
Here is a link to the EPA announcement.
I’m relieved that pesticide manufacturers may be forced to give details of ingredients in their products. Research from Harvard School of Public Health in June 2006 found that those in contact with pesticides were 70% more likely to develop Parkinson’s Disease within 10 years.
Danish organic male farmers were found to be much more fertile than farmers working with pesticides. There are concerns some chemicals cause oestrogen mimic hormones, which are linked to breast cancer. Breast cancer has risen significantly in recent years.
Not the Christmas present you hoped for as yet, Nell. Having the ingredients listed doesn’t help since most people never even know they’ve been exposed to pesticides. There is no legal requirement for ‘over the counter’ purchases of pesticides, herbicides etc. to be disclosed to ’secondary’ consumers within an office, school, or treated residence if you don’t own the place. Most homes nearby farming facilities never know what is in use there although drift will encompass residents for miles around. Aerial spraying is being abolished now in the EU for its widespread contamination.
I was disabled by pesticide poisoning in a school I supervised in NYC back in 1999. Promised prior notification of such chemical applications was withheld from me. When I suspected my advancing disability status might be due to pesticide use, such usage was denied right through the period beyond my conducting tests of that facility. Residues of the products known as Demon and Demand were found taken from baseboard swipes and records of the applications later noted in company records although the company said such notations were in ‘error’.
Now that I research and write occasionally on the topic, there is really no option for our citizens other than testing their own offices and homes for suspected contaminants. Millions of home remain contaminated from pesticides banned back in the sixties (DDT) and eighties (Chlordane), still inducing serious harm without a clue as to their presence.
I have asked Mr. Schneider to pursue this line of investigative study as the CDC now tells us pesticides are ubiquitous and no one can avoid coming into contact with them. That basically abrogates our rights to avoid such chemical trespass of our property and bodies to multiple central nervous system poisons. One in six of our children to be developmentally disabled and a third of adults (16-64) exhibit some chronic illness or disability. One in two men will get cancer and one in three women.
Now that would be a belated Christmas present indeed – notice of exposure so we can each measure the hazards in our vicinity and make choices about how we deal with them. If we can also inform our doctors before they begin treating our symptoms, great advances in medicine can be taken as root causes of illness become clearer. It is too late for me but citizens need to take such things into their own hands now rather than waiting for government to do so. The EPA told me they were helpless to manage such problems and citizens had to do it through civil litigation.
Assuming we live to complete it.
Barbara Rubin