Whose Environment is this Agency Protecting?

[nosmokes]

original

EPA to Ban One Pesticide, Lets 32 Others Stay in Use

* EPA to Ban One Pesticide, Lets 32 Others Stay in Use
It misses the deadline for a ruling on another controversial chemical in its 10-year review
By Marla Cone Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2006
Straight to the Source

Nearing the end of a 10-year review of all pesticides, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to ban a farm chemical that has tainted water and proved deadly to birds, but the agency approved continued use of 32 other widely used insecticides.

Under a 1996 food-safety statute, the EPA had to evaluate all 231 active ingredients in pesticides using new safety guidelines focused on the risks to children and the effects of cumulative exposure. Thursday was the deadline set by the statute, though a decision on one controversial chemical is not expected for six weeks.

The EPA proposed to phase out all uses of carbofuran, a farm chemical that is lethal to birds in even small doses. Numerous birds of prey and other species have died from exposure since the chemical's introduction in 1967, according to the National Audubon Society.

The EPA concluded that "there are considerable risks associated with carbofuran in food and drinking water, risks to pesticide applicators, and risks to birds that are exposed in treated fields."

The president of the American Bird Conservancy, George Fenwick, called the decision "a victory for science and the environment."
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complete article here

[MessiahRp]

1. You probably should wait a couple of months

When the EPA official that wrote the report comes clean on how the Bush Administration strong armed them into revising their report until they came to what they published.

It's already happened numerous times.

Rp

[nam78_two]

2. Look at the guy in charge of that agency

:eyes:

I just don't understand why there isn't more outrage that the guy heading the EPA basically used the kids of impoverished parents as guinea pigs for pesticide testing, for $1000 and a t-shirt :eyes:

[robinlynne]

3. I read an interesting article yesterday about chemicals. Apparently the

European equivalent of the FDA works a different way. If you want to market a chemical you have to prove that it is safe, not the other way around. hair dye, for instance can only be sold when tests PROVE that it si safe. no-one ever has to prove it is harmful. So there are 22 hairdye chemicals used here in the US, which are banned in Europe because they have not been scientifically proven to be safe. They may cause no danger, but they have not been PROVEN safe.
Here the burden of proof is on dead people, dead birds.. safety is simply not the concern....