For kids` sake
The us Environmental Protection Agency (epa) suffered a double whammy on September 15, when two separate lawsuits raising the same issue were filed against it in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York. The contention in both cases: epa 's inability to implement stipulated children-specific standards for pesticide content in food. These norms prescribe an additional tenfold margin of safety.
The plaintiffs in one of the cases are the attorneys general of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Litigation in the other has been initiated by an 11-member informal group comprising the Natural Resources Defense Council (nrdc), Pesticide Action Network North America, Breast Cancer Fund and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
nrdc staff attorney Aaron Colangelo explains why the recourse was taken: "We petitioned epa repeatedly in 1998 to protect infants and children, but it didn't respond. The issue was also raised in several comments to the agency on individual pesticides. This, too, didn't bear fruit. We've had to sue epa because not only has it failed to shield kids from pesticides, it is actually re-approving many such toxic chemicals.'
Marc Violette of the New York attorney general's office, too, cites similar reasons: "Two years of meetings, conference calls and document-swapping with the agency did not yield anything. In our view, further interface of this nature was not going to sway epa to do its job.' But the watchdog body claims that the recommended standards are already being met and no supplementary measures are required. epa spokesperson Nina Habib Spencer asserts: "Let there be no mistake. The agency is extremely concerned about the safety of the nation's children.'
Legally bound Way back in 1996, the us congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act which mandated a safety factor for children that was 10 times higher than the prevalent standards. This, the legislation noted, was meant to "ensure that there is reasonable certainty that no harm will result to infants and children from aggregate exposure to the pesticide chemical residue'.
The act clearly spelt out that "the Administrator may use a different margin of safety for the pesticide chemical residue only if, on the basis of reliable data, (it) will be safe for...children'.
epa , however, puts its own interpretation on the regulation. "Ten is not a magic number. We have, at times, used an even higher standard for assessing pesticide toxicity to children,' Spencer tells Down To Earth and adds: "Given the variety of these chemicals in the market, congress let epa scientists assess each product differently with up to a tenfold added safety factor for children.'
Pivotal source The 1996 law was based on the findings of a National Academy of Sciences (nas) report, brought out in 1993 and entitled