My new paper just published in Environmental Health
USA lags behind EU, Brazil and China in banning harmful pesticides
Don’t have time to read it? Take a stroll through this thread.
ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
I compiled the approval status of over 500 pesticides and found that the U.S. stills uses a whole lot of pesticides in outdoor agricultural applications that are banned or being phased out in the EU, China and Brazil.
Just how much is truly staggering
As you would imagine, pesticides banned by at least 2 of these nations but still approved in the U.S. are not on the benign end of the spectrum.
Bensulide, dicrotophos, phorate, terbufos and tribufos are in the neurotoxic organophosphate class that was once used in chemical warfare in World War II. Same class as #chlorpyrifos
Paraquat is one of the most acutely lethal pesticides still in use today, with a teaspoon-sized dose being enough to kill a grown adult.
Oxytetracycline and streptomycin, two medically-important antibiotics, have elicited opposition from the FDA and CDC that they could facilitate the development of antibiotic-resistant human pathogens.
nytimes.com/2019/05/17/hea…
Why haven’t these been banned in the US? Because pesticide makers haven’t wanted to cancel them
In the last 10 years, the EPA has unilaterally cancelled only 1 pesticide active ingredient. The pesticide industry has voluntarily cancelled 34
The EPA relying almost exclusively on voluntary cancellations means that economic reasons, rather than human and environmental health reasons, drive the decisions of which pesticides stay and which get the boot
To be fair, some voluntary cancellations are the result of negotiations between EPA and industry and probably can’t be considered truly “voluntary.”
But should the banning of highly hazardous pesticides be negotiated?
There is a lot of complexity here. Part of the issue lies with EPA and its capture by the pesticide industry, another part lies with our weak and ineffective pesticide laws.
But it’s a problem that likely won’t be solved by a new administration. The roots go deeper than that
You can read more about it on my blog post
blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-biology/201…
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