Toxic Pesticide (carbofuran) Banned Thanks to Activism

by Spence Cooper on 13/05/09 at 9:07 am

The EPA Working Hard to Protect Us

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a ruling that reverses previous regulations allowing small residues of the pesticide carbofuran in our food supply. A move, claims the WSJ, that’s likely to restrict the flow of U.S. crop imports.

Let’s hope so, because James Fitzwater, a spokesman for the company [FMC, a Philadelphia-based Corp] that manufactures the stuff claims a high percentage of the carbofuran made by his company is exported overseas and to Latin America and Asia.

“It’s going to have no impact on the manufacture of this product,” Fitzwater said of the EPA regulatory action. “We have a very small market in the United States.”

“Carbofuran,” writes Ken Ward Jr. with the West Virginia Gazette, “is used much more widely in the developing world, on rice, bananas, coffee and sugar cane. Initially, EPA had announced its ban would not affect foods imported into the United States, but that changed when the ban was formally proposed in July 2008.

Carbofuran – used by herdsmen in East Africa to poison lions – poses an unacceptable health risk, especially to children. Carbofuran is sold under the brand name Furadan, and was banned in its granular form in the 1990s because the pesticide was responsible for killing millions of migratory birds. The EPA initiated proceedings to remove the pesticide from the market in 2006 and issued the final rule on Monday.

Carbofuran, according to the EPA, causes headaches, sweating, nausea, diarrhea, chest pains, blurred vision, anxiety and general muscular weakness. Long-term effects can include damage to the nervous and reproductive systems.

“Carbofuran causes neurological damage in humans and is one of the most deadly pesticides to birds left on the market,” says George Fenwick, president of the American Bird Conservancy. “This EPA decision marks a huge victory for wildlife and the environment.”

The EPA has not outright banned the pesticide, says the WSJ, but by revoking its tolerance levels, the agency is streamlining the process to cancel remaining carbofuran registrations. Earlier the EPA had permitted small “Tolerant” amounts through carbofuran residue limits.

The WSJ reports no U.S. food crops will be allowed to contain residues of carbofuran after Dec. 31 unless it can be proven the crop was treated before that date. EPA temporarily will allow the chemical to be used on certain crops such as field corn, potatoes, pumpkins and sunflowers—along with two non-food crop uses, pine seedlings and spinach grown for seed.

FMC attempted to bargain with the EPA by suggesting restricted use of carbofuran in the US to a smaller number of crops. But EPA officials concluded the chemical still poses “an unacceptable dietary risk, especially to children, from consuming a combination of food and water with carbofuran residues.”

FMC’s Web site affirms that carbofuran “remains a useful product, vital to the sustainability of agriculture” and that its proper use “does not create a risk to human health, wildlife or the environment.”

It’s important to note that the EPA’s actions are the result of pressure from organizations like The American Bird Conservancy and the Natural Resources Defense Council, who petitioned the EPA to restrict the use of carbofuran, “citing threats to humans as well as animals“.