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Pesticide Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS)
A Weekly News Update on Pesticides, Health and Alternatives
See PANUPS archive for complete information.
February 12, 2010
- Fumigant pesticide suspected in girls’ deaths
- Health advocates tell Congress: Time to protect next generation
- New study shows more pesticide links to Parkinson’s
- California’s newest carcinogen: Senate Food & Ag chair says no!
- EPA reviews new science on atrazine; WI ban proposed
- Monsanto thwarted in India – GE eggplant blocked
Fumigant pesticide suspected in girls’ deaths
A 15-month-old and her four-year-old sister have died and the rest of the family was sickened in Layton, Utah, after an extermination company treated their yard with Fumitoxin pellets to control voles. Fumitoxin contains aluminum phosphide, which upon contact with moisture releases phosphine, a lethal gas with no antidote. Investigators detected toxic levels of the gas in the family’s home following the first death and are awaiting autopsy results that they expect will confirm phosphine poisoning as the cause of death.
The Fumitoxin label specifies an application rate of just two to four pellets per rodent burrow and that it should not be used within 15 feet of homes or occupied structures. Investigators have determined that the exterminator used a total of 1.5 lbs of product in the yard and applied it seven feet from the front door. Authorities have not ruled out filing charges against the company.
Aluminum phosphide is a powerful fumigant rarely used in home pest control. Utah’s KTSU news interviewed an uninvolved pest control operator who said, “We’ve never purchased this stuff, it’s just not worth having around … It’s not real practical, it’s not safe enough to be worth it.” PAN Staff Scientist Karl Tupper stressed the dangers of aluminum phosphide: “Sadly, this incident is the latest in a long string of poisonings involving this product. It’s apparent that this chemical is just too dangerous to remain on the market. There’s no room for error when using a poison like this, but people are human and they make mistakes, cut corners, and get complacent with safety. Such lapses should be anticipated by regulators when a product as hazardous as Fumitoxin is proposed for registration.”
Contributions to assist the family can be made to the Rebecca and Rachel Toone Trust Fund at any Wells Fargo Bank.
shareMORE Saudi Arabia bans aluminum phosphide following child deaths | Digg This
Health advocates tell Congress: Time to protect next generation
PBTs are inherently dangerous. They can last for many years in the environment, and even small amounts can harm human health – becoming increasing hazardous over time since toxicity increases as the chemicals concentrate up the food chain. Many PBTs can pass from mother to child during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and some can be transported across national boundaries on wind and water currents, eventually accumulating in the polar regions. The traditional foods of indigenous communities of the Arctic are heavily contaminated with PBTs. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which has been adopted by 169 countries across the globe, targets transportable PBTs for global phaseout. The U.S. has signed but not ratified the treaty. “EPA authority to regulate PBT chemicals is a necessary ingredient of U.S. leadership on chemicals, and a valuable tool to protect the health of millions of Americans,” said Daryl Ditz, senior policy adviser on chemicals at the Center for International Environmental Law, in an interview with Energy & Environment News.
takeACTION Congress: Protect next generation now|
New study shows more pesticide links to Parkinson’s
Parkinson’s is a progressive brain disorder that is often fatal. It begins when brain cells that produce dopamine begin to die. Because it serves as a chemical messenger helping to control muscle activities, loss of dopamine leads to progressive loss of muscular control, and in turn results in a variety of symptoms such as stiffness, tremor, slow movement and difficulty walking. As the disease progresses, the patient may develop difficulty speaking, symptoms of senility similar to Alzheimer’s and severe depression. It currently affects over a million people in the United States, and according to findings of the Agricultural Health Study, individuals who reported working with pesticides on more than 400 days in their lifetimes had “nearly a two-fold greater risk of Parkinson’s disease compared to those who had applied pesticides for fewer days.” Two agricultural workers diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in France have recently won legal recognition of their condition as an occupational disease due to pesticide exposure. The Ecologist reports that their greatest difficulty was in “finding clear evidence from scientific studies and asking doctors to make the link between exposure to pesticides and a medical condition.”
In the United States, studies have linked Parkinson’s disease with numerous pesticides, including PAN Bad Actors propargite, methomyl, chlorpyrifos, lindane, paraquat and methyl bromide, but personal injury suits against pesticide manufacturers are extraordinarily difficult because the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act preempts court action as long as the manufacturer complies with EPA labeling and packaging requirements. Kathryn Gilje, Executive Director of Pesticide Action Network, said, “Farmers are on the front lines when it comes to pesticide exposure. Scientific data link Parkinson’s disease along with several cancers, birth defects and other health impacts with exposure to pesticides, but pesticide corporations have argued for years that their products should be innocent until proven guilty. PAN believes that pesticide corporations should be held responsible for health damages of their products; and that the burden of proof should rest on pesticide corporations to prove that their chemicals are safe before they are released.”
shareMORE Parkinson’s Action Network on pesticides link |
California’s newest carcinogen: Senate Food & Ag chair says no!
A special Scientific Review Committee was convened by DPR to assess the safety of using methyl iodide to “sterilize” fields before planting strawberries, grapes and other crops. The Committee’s final report (PDF), which found (PDF) that “any anticipated scenario for the agricultural…use of this agent would…have a significant adverse impact on the public health,” was posted on DPR’s website on Feb. 11. DPR wasn’t the only agency waiting on the report: on September 25, 2009, U.S. EPA publicly agreed to reopen its decision on methyl iodide. During EPA’s registration process at the tail end of the Bush era, more than 50 scientists across the country — five of them Nobel Laureates in chemistry — sent a letter to EPA (PDF) expressing astonishment that the agency “would even consider the introduction of a chemical like methyl iodide into agricultural use.” The scientists reported that chemists working with methyl iodide in the laboratory “use the smallest amounts possible and take great precautions to avoid exposure” to this risky chemical. There’s still time to tell California’s governor to say no to methyl iodide.
shareMORE ‘Choose Safer Strawberries’ from MomsRising |
EPA reviews new science on atrazine; WI ban proposed
According to Science News, the SAP reviewed five studies, including last spring’s studies. Aaron Niman, an EPA scientist sitting on the panel, described the Ochoa-Acuna research linking atrazine to low birth weight as “probably the strongest of the studies” because it included individual atrazine-exposure estimates, water contamination data spanning many years, and established birth weights from state registries. Tim Pastoor, principal scientist for Syngenta — the primary producer of atrazine for the U.S. — claimed that “the studies that Niman reviewed ‘all have fundamental flaws'”. “Indeed, he noted in a prepared statement, ‘the same uptick in birth defects in spring months is seen throughout the United States, regardless of atrazine usage.'” U.C. Berkeley atrazine researcher Tyrone Hayes responded that atrazine’s persistence allows it to move long distances: “USGS can measure atrazine in the rainwater in Minnesota that was applied in Kansas.” Meanwhile, Wisconsin state representative Gary Heble of Sun Prairie has introduced a bill to ban the use of atrazine in the state.
shareMORE Atrazine: Syngenta’s herbicide |
Monsanto thwarted in India – GE eggplant blocked
shareMORE PANUPS look at brinjal food protests |
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