=======================Electronic
Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #481
—February 15, 1996—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@rachel.clark.net
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BANANA LAWS AND POTATO HEADS
The food industry went ballistic last month when Food & Water,
Inc., a grass-roots advocacy group in Walden, Vermont, and
Environmental Research Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland,
published an ad in SUPERMARKET NEWS comparing pesticide deaths to
deaths by assault rifles, concluding that, “More people are
killed by their salad.” (See REHW #480.)
For the past five years, the food industry –especially the
produce industry (fruits and vegetables) –has been developing a
campaign called “5-a-Day.” They want everyone to eat five
helpings of fruits and vegetables each day. This is a
multi-million-dollar food-industry campaign, directed by the
Produce for Better Health Foundation. Because we read food
industry publications like PRODUCE NEWS, SUPERMARKET NEWS and THE
PACKER, we know that the food corporations are banking on this
campaign to provide greatly increased profits for agrichemical
food growers.
That’s why they went nuts when Food & Water struck their Achilles
heel, which is the fact that most of the fruits and vegetables in
supermarkets today contain pesticide residues that can cause
disease. This a dirty little secret that the food industry
doesn’t want anyone talking about.
In fact, agribusiness corporations are so eager to close off
discussion of toxic pesticide residues on food that the industry
has been campaigning state by state in recent years to pass “food
disparagement” laws making it a crime to criticize agricultural
products without “a sound scientific basis.” Such “banana laws”
(as they are called) are now on the books in eleven states
(Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas) and they are
under consideration in California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa,
Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and
Washington state. [1] Further, the food industry is trying to
stick a “food disparagement” provision into the 1996 Farm
Bill, [2]which is still being bitterly debated in Congress as we
go to press. [3] It seems clear that these banana laws will be
declared unconstitutional when they are challenged in court, but
it will be a long, expensive fight–probably costing upwards of
half a million dollars to litigate. As a result, such laws will
very likely have a chilling effect on journalists and others who
might be inclined to discuss the possibility that pesticide-laced
foods aren’t as healthy for you as fruits and vegetables that are
free of poisonous residues.
Proponents of banana laws openly admit that their purpose is to
silence food-safety activists. [4] In Florida, anyone found
guilty of “agricultural disparagement” must pay a fine equal to
three times the estimated dollar amount of damage done to
agribusiness plaintiffs. The Georgia statute defines
disparagement as “the willful or malicious dissemination to the
public in any manner of false information that a perishable food
product or commodity is not safe for human consumption” and
defines false information as “not based on reasonable and
reliable scientific inquiry, facts, or data.” It’s anybody’s
guess what “reasonable” and “reliable” mean. We can recall a
time not long ago when “reasonable” and “reliable” data showed
that diethylstilbestrol (DES) and DDT were both “safe” for humans
and the environment. Unfortunately those reasonable and reliable
data were quite wrong. [5]
The food industry flatly denies that anyone has ever been harmed
by the roughly 600 million pounds of toxic chemicals that have
been intentionally sprayed on the nation’s food and fiber crops
each year for the past 50 years. Bob Carey, president of the
Produce Marketing Association in Newark, Delaware, told
SUPERMARKET NEWS that he was “dismayed and appalled” by the Food
& Water advertisement which said thousands of Americans are
killed each year by pesticide residues. [6]“No one… has ever
been harmed by eating fresh produce properly treated with crop
protection tools,” Carey told the NEWS. He told the PACKER,
“Produce on store shelves and on restaurant plates is safe.” [7]
Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable
Association called the statements in the ad “pure
fabrication.”[7] David Moore, president of the Western Growers
Association said that comparing the hazards of fresh produce to
assault weapons was “tantamount to yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded
theater.” Falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater has been
used by the U.S. Supreme Court as a legal test for determining
when society has the right to limit a person’s Constitutional
right of free speech.
But suppose it is true that pesticides kill more people than
assault rifles do each year. Then Mr. Carey, Mr. Stenzel, Mr.
Moore are making false statements that would tend to harm people
by inducing them to consume toxic chemicals. (We agree that
organic, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables are excellent for
health. However, putting poison on your salad just doesn’t make
sense to us.)
So who’s right? Unfortunately, good data are scarce. The only
book-length study of pesticide hazards was published by the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1987. The NAS reported in
1987 that they could find “very limited actual data”[8,pg.59]
regarding pesticide residues on food. David Pimental at Cornell
University pointed out in 1993 that “U.S. analytical methods now
employed detect only about one-third of the more than 600
pesticides in use.” [9,pg.49] So estimates must be substituted
for real data. Fifty years into pesticide technology, this lack
of data is shocking and pathetic. (Ask yourself, who benefits
from the absence of such data?)
The NAS study restricted itself to pesticides in and on food. It
omitted pesticide exposures that occur as a result of drinking
pesticide-contaminated ground water, [8,pg.45] a phenomenon that
is very common in parts of the U.S.
Pesticides come in 3 flavors: herbicides, insecticides, and
fungicides.
According to the NAS, about 480 million pounds of herbicides are
used annually in the U.S.; of these, 300 million pounds (62.5%)
are agents that “the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]
presumes to be oncogenic or for which positive oncogenicity data
are currently under review by the agency.” [8,pg.46] Oncogenic
means tumor-producing. The NAS estimate omitted two large-volume
herbicides, atrazine and 2,4-D, because EPA received data
indicating oncogenicity of these chemicals after the NAS study
was completed. [8,pg.47]
Quantities of oncogenic insecticides are not described in detail
in the NAS study. Insecticides are described in terms of acre
treatments; one acre-treatment is defined as one acre to which
one pesticide has been applied one time. NAS says that presumed
oncogens make up between 35% and 50% of all insecticidal
acre-treatments. [8,pgs.47-48]
About 90% of all fungicides show positive results in oncogenicity
tests. These oncogenic fungicides represent from 70 million to
75 million of the 80 million pounds of all fungicides applied
annually in the U.S. [8,pg.48]
The NAS committee worked with a 1985 list of 53 pesticides that
EPA considered oncogenic. [8,pg.50] However, an estimate of
oncogenic potency was only available for 28 of the 53, or
53%.[8,pg.51] In other words, NAS found that it could not
estimate the risks for 47% –roughly half –of the pesticides
that EPA identified as oncogenic because necessary data on
oncogenic potency were not available. The NAS therefore
restricted its analysis to the 28 pesticides for which data
existed. NAS used EPA’s data and EPA’s risk assessment
methods. [8,pg.46]
NAS says that, in doing risk assessments, EPA “tries to make
necessary assumptions in a way that minimizes the chance of
underestimating risks.” [8,pg.50] “The result is that these [NAS]
risk assessments probably overstate true oncogenic risk,” NAS
said. [8,pg.50] Risk refers to incidence of cancer cases, not
death. [8,pg.65]
The NAS said there are 4 reasons why its risk estimates may
overstate the risk, and four reasons why its estimates may
understate the risk.
Reasons why NAS estimates may overstate the risk:
** In extrapolating from high-dose tumor incidence data to
low-dose estimates, conservative assumptions have been made;
** NAS assumed that all acres of all crops are treated with the
pesticides which are registered for use on those crops;
** NAS assumed that residues are always present at the legally
allowable level, when in fact they are usually present at lower
levels;
** NAS assumes that daily exposure occurs during a 70-year
lifetime. [8,pg.65]
Reasons why NAS may have understated the risk:
** NAS lacked toxicological data for some active ingredients and
for most “inert” ingredients, degradation products, and
metabolites. [So-called “inerts” make up the bulk of most
pesticides and are closely-held secrets. Some “inerts” are toxic
in their own right; see REHW #469. Likewise, metabolites and
degradation by-products can be more poisonous than the parent
compound; for example, DDE is more toxic than its parent, DDT.]
** The models used for extrapolating from animal data to humans
may have been insufficiently conservative in some respects.
** Certain routes of exposure were omitted.
** Possible synergistic (multiplier) effects of pesticides and
metabolites) were omitted from consideration. [8,pgs.65-66]
NAS estimated[8,pg.68] that the total risk from the 28
pesticides was 5.85 cancers per thousand people per lifetime.
Dividing this by 70 (years in a lifetime) and multiplying it by
the number of groups of 1000 in the U.S. population (250,000
such groups) yields an annual estimated pesticide-caused cancer
incidence of 20,800 in the U.S. If half of the new
pesticide-caused cancers each year result in death, this brings
NAS’s estimate of annual deaths from pesticides-in-food to
10,400 per year. 10 How does this compare to deaths by assault
rifles? And didn’t we set out to discuss dioxin strategy? More
next week.
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
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[1] Helen Cordes, “Watch Your Mouth!,” UTNE READER January, 1996,
pgs. 16-17.
[2] Paul Rauber, “Vegetable Hate Crimes,” SIERRA MAGAZINE
November/December, 1995, pgs 20-21.
[6] “Trade Groups Blasting Anti-Pesticide Ad,” SUPERMARKET NEWS
December 25, 1995, pg. 26.
[7] Dave Swenson, “Ad stirs quick response,” THE PACKER Dec. 25,
1995, pg. 4A.
Descriptor terms: pesticides; advertising; advertisements;
progice;’ fruits; vegetables; carcinogens; cancer estimates;
national academy of sciences; produce for better health
foundation; food & water inc; banana laws; first amendment;
produce marketing association; united fresh fruit and vegetable
association; wastern growers association; david pimentel;
mortality statistics;