CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2018, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TRUMP’S EPA KEEPS NERVE GAS PESTICIDE IN USE HERE”
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2018, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TRUMP’S EPA KEEPS NERVE GAS PESTICIDE IN USE HERE”
The
outcry would be enormous if large numbers of farmers began using Zyklon B as a
pesticide on fruits and vegetables. That was the nerve gas Nazi Germany used to
execute six million Jews and eight million other victims in their notorious
death camps.
But
there was little outcry except from environmentalists when the chief of
President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency late in 2017 decided to let
U.S. farms continue using another nerve gas invented by the Nazis on crops as
diverse as nuts, apples, broccoli, melons, citrus, corn and soybeans. German
scientists didn’t invent the organophosphate chemical chlorpyrifos as a
pesticide; rather they used it to gas Jews, gypsies and others they crammed
into the airtight rear areas of mobile vans, a total of more than half a
million persons.
Trump
is not alone in allowing manufacturers (primarily the Dow Chemical Co.) to keep
selling the noxious substance to farmers and others. In fact, ex-President
Barack Obama’s EPA didn’t move to prevent use of chlorpyrifos (pronounced
klawr-peer-uh-fos). Obama’s EPA, though, did not claim the evidence against the
substance was “insufficient” to declare it a health hazard, as current EPA head
Scott Pruitt did.
But the
EPA under Obama did drag its feet, so much that in a 2015 hearing of the Ninth
Circuit federal Court of Appeals, longtime appellate Judge Wallace Tashima
scolded an EPA lawyer about the eight years it had by then taken the agency to
work on a possible chlorpyrifos ban. “I think this is a pretty miserable
record,” Tashima opined.
The
upshot is that chemical companies, not objective scientists, appear to control
America’s pesticide regulation, no matter who is president.
That
became clear when a scientific panel of California’s Office of Environmental
Health Hazard Assessment last month voted unanimously to place the chemical on
the list of dangerous substances under the 1986 Proposition 65. The panel
included professors from UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis and Stanford, along with a
scientist from the pharmaceutical firm Genentech.
Proposition 65 hazard warnings
usually are found on gasoline pumps and tanker trucks, not grocery shelves. But California farms now use more than 1
million pounds of chlorpyrifos yearly, about one-fourth of the national total,
even if it is at lower concentrations than what Nazi executioners employed.
Just last May, 50 farm workers exposed to its spraying near Bakersfield
immediately suffered symptoms like vomiting, nausea and fainting.
A 2016
EPA report found there are no safe uses of chlorpyrifos. All food exposure, the
study said, is unsafe and there is no safe level in drinking water. The
chemical is found at unsafe levels in schools, homes and widespread communities
in agricultural areas like the Central Valley. In fields, unsafe levels
continue 18 days after spraying.
Ironically,
this chemical also puts the lie to the old saying that “an apple a day keeps
the doctor away.” For apples are one of the crops where chlorpyrifos is most
commonly used. In California, it is used most heavily in Kern, Tulare and
Monterey counties.
A detailed
2016 study by Project TENDR, an independent group of academic scientists, found
“Children in America…are at an unacceptably high risk of neurodevelopmental
disorders that affect the brain and nervous system, including autism,
intellectual disabilities and…behavioral disabilities.” The pesticide puts
children at risk for lower IQ, attention deficit disorders and childhood
tremors, among other problems.
Instead
of using it, farmers could fight insect pests with botanically-sourced
pesticides including cinnamon oil and garlic oil. State officials report some
have switched to another family of insecticides known as neonicitinoids. One
problem: These substances threaten bees, even if they are easier on people.
But no
one has to make changes for now because of the Pruitt ruling. So children not
only in California, but nationwide, may be endangered by eating foods their
parents have good reason to believe healthy. That’s in part because studies
show toxicity even at very low concentrations.
The bottom
line: Obama may have been slow dealing with the chlorpyrifos problem. But Trump
and his appointee Pruitt make it clear they don’t even see a problem.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. He is the author of the book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. He is the author of the book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
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