Chapter 28
Why Isn't the Environmental Protection Agency Reducing Pesticide Risks? Janet S. Hathaway
Downloaded by MONASH UNIV on May 21, 2018 | https://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 31, 1991 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1991-0446.ch028
Natural Resources Defense Council, 1350 New York Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005
Congress in 1988 directed EPA to reevaluate the hundreds of pesticides which were registered with incomplete health and safety data. Environmentalists expected the new law to force EPA to reduce risks from each dangerous pesticide use when it evaluates the new data submitted by pesticide manufactur ers. Those expectations were dampened in 1989 when EPA announced its proposal to regulate the EBDC fungicides. In this article, I will discuss how EPA's pesticide regulatory pro gram has lost the public's confidence. More fundamentally, I will argue that EPA's efforts to address concerns about Alar and the EBDC fungicides illustrate the Agency's paralysis over pesticide risk management. Risks—even those identified by the EPA as "unreasonable"—are not systematically reduced or eliminated. EPA has attempted to deflect the public's attention from the health risks posed by pesticide residues in food. The Agency and the Administration appear to believe that the role of government is to keep the public calm while slowly amassing the data which would enable the Agency to incontrovertibly demonstrate the magnitude of the human health risk. And, perhaps then, the government may act. In response to the furor over Alar, EPA suggested that the food supply is safe. But I believe—and many other environmentalists believe—that EPA and FDA cannot make that case unless all they mean is that the pesticide residues in food are unlikely to cause acute poisonings. Pesticide residues are certainly likely to increase the incidence of chronic health problems, including cancer. Though the Agency acknowledges that some pesticides—Alar and EBDCs, for example—pose unacceptably high cancerrisks,the EPA has not
0097-6156/91Λ)446-0258$06.00Λ) © 1991 American Chemical Society
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
Downloaded by MONASH UNIV on May 21, 2018 | https://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 31, 1991 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1991-0446.ch028
28.
HATHAWAY
Why Isn't EPA Reducing Pesticide Risks?
259
presented a clear strategy for reducing those risks. EPA simply cannot realistically claim to have a plan to "manage" the pesticide risk. EPA is not committed to reducing risk to the lowest possible levels. Instead, EPA uses its review of especially dangerous pesticides ("special review") for a much simpler purpose. Special review is used by EPA to answer a relatively narrow question: shall we retain some or all of the uses of this agricultural chemical or shall we cancel (or suspend) them? A faucet which is either entirely off or fully on. EPA almost never explores the possibilities for risk reduction, let alone risk minimization. For example, EPA virtually never seeks to limit or eliminate the near-to-harvest or even post-harvest uses that are likely to leave the greatest residue concentrations. And consumers are not getting straight talk about how muchriskEPA considers acceptable or "negligible." EPA says it has a one-in-a-million cancer risk standard. But EPA uses that standard inconsistently—and there are no clear signals about when the standard will be applied rigorously and when it will merely be cited as a goal. Some uses of pesticides which pose greater than a one-in-a-million cancer risk are retained— and some uses which pose lesser risk are proposed for cancellation. Sometimes EPA considers risks above IO" justifiable because of alleged economic benefits cited by registrants and growers. Sometimes EPA cites such benefits notwithstanding the availability of alternative growing practices which would reduce or obviate the need for reliance on the pesticide in question. EPA also performs risk assessments inconsistently. Sometimes the agency uses maximum field application residue studies; sometimes they use actual residue data. Sometimes the Agency evaluates exposure based on the average adult consumption—i.e., the total volume of commodity sold in the U.S. divided by the total U.S. population. Sometimes it looks at the consumption patterns of some population subgroups. But virtually never does the consumer who eats large amounts of a commodity—such as the consumer at the 95th percentile of strawberry consumption—have assurance of protection at the one-in-a-million risk rate under the pesticide program. We shouldn't have to be "average" eaters of all commodities in order to avoid a significantly enhanced cancer risk from pesticides. These variations, which make it impossible to predict what EPA will consider to be an acceptable risk, create uncertainty and concern for environmentalists, growers and the regulated industry. Risk cannot be adequately managed unless those attempting to manage risks have a clear, unequivocal statement of how much risk will be tolerated. Andriskscannot be said to be adequately managed unless there is a consistent attempt on the part of the agency to reduce risk at least to the one-in-a-million level. Until EPA shows that it intends to reduce risk wherever possible and to ensure that in no case the cancer risk exceeds one-in-a-million, NRDC will consider the pesticide regulatory program more of a public relations effort than a true instance of risk management for public health protection. 6
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
Downloaded by MONASH UNIV on May 21, 2018 | https://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 31, 1991 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1991-0446.ch028
260
PESTICIDE RESIDUES AND FOOD SAFETY
From some of the concerns voiced earlier at this meeting, one might conclude that many of the pesticides are being heavily restricted and rapidly removed from the market. Though growers and pesticide manufacturers may fear such a world, this is not the world we live in nor the world I anticipate. I, for one, see no sign that we have an EPA or an FDA which is about to yank chemicals off the market based on mere speculation that they may pose hazards. The real world is quite far from this image. In fact, the process of reviewing and regulating pesticides occurs very slowly—the average special review takes about 5 years. Many pesticides emerge from special review without any significant changes in legal uses or permissible residue levels. Instead, EPA ends some special reviews after years of data collection and examination by merely issuing a statement that the current risks appear to be justified by the benefits of the compound or by stating that current data is inconclusive. Examples include alachlor and captan. Environmentalists expect something rather different from EPA's special review process. Instead of justifying the status quo, EPA should be seeking to reduce risks. Even where it's difficult, EPA should work with growers, commodity groups, registrants, and USDA to explore how pesticide risks may be reduced or eliminated. Often risks may be able to be reduced without completely banning a pesticide. EPA should insist for each pesticide under special review that the riskiest uses stop immediately and that all users take serious measures to reduce the residue levels for consumers. Today, there is tremendous variation in the residue levels which are found even in commodities which are grown on comparable, nearby farms. Even when pest pressures and geographical regions are similar, pesticide use varies greatly. Some growers have residue levels ten times higher than those achieved by neighbors, and government agencies do virtually nothing to ensure that such growers modify their practices. According to a recent report from the University of California Agricultural Issues Center, over 80 percent of tomatoes tested by the California Department of Food and Agriculture contained less than ten percent of the tolerance levels for all residues found. But a small percentage of growers had much higher pesticide residue levels. The same situation occurs with other commodities. EPA should routinely reduce the tolerance of a pesticide which poses dietary risks of cancer above the one-in-a-million level, even if that residue level is not historically achieved by the majority of growers. Then it should be up to growers and registrants to find a way to meet that new, lower tolerance. USDA and Cooperative Extension Service should help disseminate information to growers to enable them to achieve the low residues levels. Modified timing and methods of application may enable growers to reduce pesticide residue levels dramatically, sometimes to a small percentage of the conventional level. In evaluating a pesticide, EPA should not consider a pesticide use beneficial if prudent farm management could obviate or greatly reduce the pesticide use, residue levels, and risks.
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
Downloaded by MONASH UNIV on May 21, 2018 | https://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 31, 1991 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1991-0446.ch028
28.
HATHAWAY
Why Isn't EPA Reducing Pesticide Risk?
261
Pesticides are often discussed in the abstract, as though they are either beneficial or dangerous regardless of use. This is not particularly helpful. It is a particular pesticide use which is either worthwhile or unreasonably risky. Whether a use should be retained should be based on comparing alternative pest control practices, considered in light of effects on human health and the environment. Only in light of concretely demonstrated superiority of the various uses for a particular pesticide to other pest management practices which do not entail pesticide use should EPA deem a certain use of a pesticide beneficial. And in no case should cancer risks beyond one-in-amillion be condoned. Where pesticide risks can be prudently reduced even beyond this level, EPA should use the special review and cancellation processes to do so. Today our federal government is not regulating pesticides to ensure that growers, shippers and others are using them only when necessary and then in the most efficacious and cautious manner. If we reorient our government operations to seek efficient, minimized pesticide use, agricultural pesticides will pose far less risk but confer far greater benefits to society than they do today. RECEIVED August 29,1990
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
