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Worried about the coronavirus killing you?
Forget about all the pesticides, preservatives, GMOs, PFAS—perfluoroalkyl substances, a family of more than 5,000 hardy chemicals used to make products ranging from firefighting foam to waterproof mascara—have widely pervaded the U.S. water supply.
Put on that mask, social distance, scrub your hands and get the vax to save you from the virus… especially if you’re pregnant, according to “officials.”
And ignore the University of California at San Francisco study of pregnant women that found 55 chemicals in their bodies that have never before been reported in people and another 42 whose origin or purposes are unknown… the new born babies will love them seeping through their minds and bodies.
Better Late Than Never?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on 18 August that a pesticide, chlorpyrifos, in use in U.S. agriculture since the 1965, would now be banned, because it has been determined to do neurological damage to children, including miscarriages, birth defects and learning disabilities, as well as potentially harming farmworkers.
More than 5 million pounds of the pesticide were used on U.S. farmland in 2017 alone. It had already been banned or limited by some countries and states, including California and New York.
Pesticide brands containing chlorpyrifos include Hatchet, Eraser and Govern.
Used on crops including soybeans, corn, almonds, grapes, apples, broccoli and cauliflower, chlorpyrifos was the subject of a petition submitted to the EPA in 2007 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which asked that the then-allowable minimum trace level of the pesticide be lowered and that food be prohibited from containing trace amounts above the new level.
The Wall St. Journal reported on 19 August, as did The New York Times that same day, that the long-overdue ban comes about after a ruling in April by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; that ruling held that the EPA must ban the pesticide’s use on food if the agency couldn’t prove that it was safe for consumption.
That ruling also contained a federal judge’s opinion that the EPA had used delay tactics to evade its statutory duty. It wouldn’t be the first instance of the EPA being slow to act; see TJ‘s February 2020 article, “FOREVER CHEMICALS: POISON ON TAP.”
Agricultural companies still have a six month deadline to stop using the pesticide, and regulators are preparing to review whether non-food applications, such as in plant nurseries or mosquito control, will still be permissible. And it will still be used on golf courses, for cockroach and ant control and other applications.
The WSJ says that the EPA had proposed banning the pesticide in 2015, but the Trump administration dropped that plan. Dow Chemical, once the primary producer of chlorpyrifos, had fought the EPA proposal. The breakup of Dow DuPont gave rise to Corteva, which no longer produces chlorpyrifos but “stands by the safety of the product and its value for the grower community,” adding that banning it removes “an effective tool for farmers.”
Even when it’s eventually prodded into taking action, the EPA has few if any fans. A statement from an agro-chemical trade group accuses the EPA of taking “an overly broad action that will cause significant problems for our industry’s farm customers.”