ENVIRONMENT-UNITED STATES: Pesticide Contamination Remains Big Danger

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Danielle Knight

WASHINGTON, May 23 1998 (IPS) - Children in the United States today remained exposed to harmful pesticides just as they were five years ago when policy makers promised to limit the use of pesticides, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Despite a 1993 national policy decision to cut pesticide use in U.S. agriculture, and make the protection of children a priority consideration in federal pesticide regulation, the Washington- based non-governmental organisation said President Bill Clinton had done nothing.

From strawberries to green beans, fruits and vegetables consumed by children, iported from other countries and grown domestically, were found still to be contaminated by cancer-causing pesticides. Water supplies also were found to be just as contaminated by pesticides as in 1993, according to the study “Same as it Ever Was” released Thursday.

“By nearly every measure, children and the rest of the population are no better off today than they were five years ago with respect to the risks posed by pesticide use and exposure,” saID EWG president Ken Cook.

Cancer rates among children have increased dramatically and many doctors, public health scientists, and environmental experts suspect this is due partly to the growing exposure to new chemicals in the environment.

In 1993, days before the release of a National Academy of Sciences study report on the threat of pesticides on children’s health, the Clinton administration announced its commitment to “reduce the risks to people and the environment that are associated with pesticides” and “reduce the use of pesticides.”

Three years later, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act that required a specific finding that a pesticide posed no “reasonable harm” to infants and children before being allowed allowed on food crops.

These measures proved that the administration had “made significant progress to protect the public from the dangers of pesticides,” declared Loretta Ucelli, spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in reponse to the environmental group’s charges.

The EWG study, using data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, however, discovered 67 pesticides – some potentially cancer-causing – in 12 fruits and vegetables heavily consumed by children in 1996, according to EWG’s study. In 1993, 58 pesticides were found in the similar fruit samples.

Levels of pesticides that are harmful to nervous systems and physical development remained about the same as found five years ago, according to EWG’s analysis of government reports.

Often more than one pesticide was found on one food sample; for example apples were found to be contaminated with as many as nine pesticides. Neither the EPA nor manufacturers ran tests on the possible health effects of ingesting combinations of these pesticides, warns the study.

For its part, the EPA did not register hundreds of pesticides since 1993 because many manufacturers did not pay for the needed health studies for food. But, most of these chemicals were used on products not normally consumed, says the study.

Drinking water supplies also remained as contaminated with pesticides as five years ago, says EWG.

“Weed killers, bug killers and other pesticides still contaminate thousands of water supplies nation wide,” said the study.” Everyone who drinks the water is affected, including millions of babies who consume pesticides when parents feed them infant formula reconstituted with tap water.

Recent data from the U.S. Geologic Survey showed that half of all 5,000 samples drawn from 20 different watersheds detected at least one neurotoxic insecticide. Some samples had as many as 13.

EPA’s special review of several widely used pesticides suspected to be cancer causing that contaminate water supplies nationwide had stalled, the study said. From New York to Hawaii, one of these pesticides – atrazine – which also is banned in some parts of Europe, atrazine, now contaminated some 1,500 drinking water systems in 20 states, says EWG.

While Clinton said he would reduce pesticide use in the United States, U.S. farmers were using more pesticides, not cutting back, said the study. “Farmers sprayed 70 million pounds weight – or 10 percent – more pesticide in 1995 than in 1993.”

Current trends indicated that, far from being reduced, pesticide use could actually reachrecord levels, said EWG. “Belying its headline-making 1993 policy, the Adminstration never developed any plan to achieve real reductions – or any reductions in agricultural pesticide use,” the environmental group says.

Despite the administration’s high-profile commitment to take the highest- risk pesticides off the market to reduce risks and make room for “safer” or low-risk pesticides, the EPA took just one pesticide, phosdrin, off the market, said EWG.

The environmental agency also signed an agreement with Dupont chemical company to end the use of the potentially harmful weed killer known as cyanazine by the year 2003. Currently, 25 million pounds of this pesticide were still used each year and it remains a significant tap water contaminant,” says the study.

The government also allowed a record number of new pesticides onto the market, says the environmental group. The EPA has approved a record number of pesticides since 1993 – totalling 81. The 31 pesticides registered by the Clinton administration in 1995 is the second-highest number of new pesticide registrations in a single year since 1975, when 35 new pesticides were put on the market.

Half of thse newly approve pesticides did not meet the EPA’s “safer” or low-health risk designations as promised in the 1993 policy statement. Acetochlor, a suspected carcinogen used on corn crops, was one of the newly approved. According to EWG, acetocholor has been found in tap waters throughout mid-western states.

Part of the reason that pesticide contamination had not decreased could be attributed may that many of the pesticides banned in the United States were not as regulated in countries which import food here, said environmental groups.

Groups point out that most of the chemical companies that produced these pesticides are based in countries where the domestic use of these chemicals is banned.

According to recent reports by the Food and Drug Administration, imported foods were three times more likely to contain illegal residues of harmful pesticides than food produced in the United States.