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Press Release September 14, 1998 |
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WASHINGTON -- The risks to infants and children from insecticides
on popular fruits and vegetables could be significantly reduced by
replacing high-risk insecticides with safer alternatives, according
to Consumers Union, which released a new food safety study
Monday.
"The choice between high-risk insecticides on kids' foods or wormy
apples is clearly a false one," said Edward Groth, Director of
Technical Policy and Public Service at CU and co-author of Worst
First: High Risk Insecticides, Children's Foods and Safer
Alternatives "Our analysis shows how American consumers,
including 19 million under age five, can have both safer food and
productive, increasingly sustainable agriculture."
The report identifies the "Worst 40" food-insecticide uses, out of
roughly 300 existing uses, that are likely responsible for the lion's
share of children's risk from pesticide exposure. The insecticides
evaluated belong to two families of chemicals initially designed as
nerve gases for use in World War II. The chemicals are toxic to the
brain and nervous systems of both insects and humans.
Worst First debunks a high profile campaign launched by the
agri-chemical industry against implementation of the tough new
children's health standard in the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA).
Some in industry have been predicting that putting this law to work
will lead to across-the-board bans on all pesticides, threaten the
U.S. food supply and lead to food shortages. Chuck Benbrook, a pest
management consultant to CU and co-author of the report analyzed the
pests driving high-risk insecticide use on kids' foods. His
evaluation shows these industry scare tactics are wildly false.
"The reality is that use and reliance of fruit and vegetable
growers on these toxic insecticides has been, in most cases,
declining over the last decade. Alternatives not only exist, they are
already being used by many growers," Benbrook concluded. "FQPA
implementation will not turn agricultural pest control upside down;
but it can and should rapidly accelerate trends already being driven
by other forces."
Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, is
sending the report to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
Carol Browner and has asked her to target FQPA regulatory action to
protect infants and children from known sources of pesticide exposure
from food.
"Two years after passage of the FQPA, EPA has yet to take action
to protect infants and children from risky pesticides on food," said
Jeannine Kenney, a Policy Analyst in CU's Washington, D.C. office.
"Our finding of abundant safer alternatives to high-risk insecticides
shows the agency has no more excuses. It is time to get on with the
business of protecting public health."
To make food safer for infants and children, Consumers Union
recommends a five point action plan:
1. EPA should target regulatory action to phase-out the "Worst 40", over two years. EPA should take steps during the first year of the phase out to begin restricting use of the Worst 40;
2. EPA should take steps to reduce or eliminate food residues resulting from use of all neurotoxic insecticides, beyond the worst 40 uses, by lowering application rates and increasing the amount of time between pesticide application and harvest;
3. USDA and Congress must fund an on-farm education initiative to spread knowledge among fruit and vegetable growers about how they can use existing technology and alternatives to rid their fields of the "Worst 40" high-risk insecticides;
4. EPA must expedite registration of safer alternatives to the "Worst 40" that are still pending review; and,
5. USDA and Congress should double funding for continuing research and development of other alternatives to insecticides and other pesticides.
