=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #247
—August 21, 1991—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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THE FALSE PROMISE OF PESTICIDES
For nearly 50 years, mainstream American science has told us that
modern life would be impossible without chemical pesticides. A
tight alliance of chemical (petroleum) companies and government
researchers has repeated the litany over and over: pesticides are
essential to a low-cost supply of food, and pesticides have
brought many human diseases under control. Believing the promises
of the agro-chemical industry, the taxpaying public has supported
a phalanx of researchers for 40 years at the nation’s
agricultural colleges. Armed with the research results, chemical
companies have marketed new bug killers and weed killers, reaping
enormous profits while the world’s environment absorbed the
toxic damage, most of which has been purposefully not studied by
mainstream science.
Now it is clear that the promise of chemical pesticides has never
been realized: a writer in SCIENCE magazine recently summed it up
this way:[1] “Efforts to control crop damage solely with
pesticides have by and large failed and, in developing countries,
insect-borne diseases remain as serious a threat as ever.” Annual
crop losses to insects in the U.S. were 7% in 1940 but rose to
13% in the 1980s, despite an enormous increase in the amount and
toxicity of chemical pesticides. Furthermore, the scientists who
asked us to put our faith in chemical poisons simply overlooked
the real Achilles heel of pesticides: pests develop resistance
to chemicals in just a few years, so even the deadliest chemicals
become ineffective against their targets rather quickly.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 447 different
species of insects, ticks and mites are now resistant to some or
all pesticides.
The extent of the problem is “rather startling” says Robert
Metcalf of the University of Illinois. “It makes you think we’re
doing something wrong.”
Something wrong indeed. It isn’t merely that the nation wastes
billions of dollars paying petrochemical firms to produce
ineffective products. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture
researchers, somewhere between 97% and 99% of all pesticides
never reach their intended targets. But those pesticides go
SOMEWHERE, and they are toxic.
Researchers at a federal government laboratory have recently
offered an unusually candid appraisal of the dark truth about
pesticides:[2] “Numerous an
myriad adverse health effects in
humans, livestock, and wildlife have been documented as being
associated with pesticide exposure. Typically, they involve both
acute and delayed manifestations of toxicity to the nervous and
reproductive systems. Because pesticides are designed and
selected for their biologic–that is toxicologic–activity,
exposure and toxicity to non-target species are inevitable and
remain significant problems. Pesticides have been shown capable
of disrupting virtually every major organ system. These adverse
effects include altered immune system function, mutagenic and
teratogenic responses, embryo toxicity and reproductive failure,
and an array of neurologic effects.”
Despite the growing recognition that we might all be better off
without chemical pesticides, in 1988, more than one billion
pounds of pesticides and related products were used in the U.S.:
660 million pounds of herbicides (weed-killers), 132 million
pounds of fungicides (fungus killers), 268 million pounds of
insecticides, and 70 million pounds of related chemicals. That’s
roughly four pounds for every man, woman and child in America.
One sector of the pesticide business is growing particularly
rapidly: lawn care. Companies with a dubious record are pushing
into the lawn care business where profits are booming. Americans
spent about $700 million in 1987 purchasing some 67 million
pounds of toxins for their lawns. The industry is reportedly
growing about 9% per year, thus doubling in size every 8 years.
The business is largely unregulated because U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has responsibility for curtailing illegal
activities in the lawn care industry, and the agency has shown
little interest in fulfilling its responsibilities.
A recent report by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO),[3]
an arm of Congress, found that, “The lawn care industry is making
claims that its products are safe or nontoxic.” GAO staff, posing
as private homeowners, phoned lawn care companies to ask for
information on the toxicity of chemicals. They reported that lawn
care representatives said things like:
** “Our products are practically nontoxic; no one gets sick.”
** “The only way to be affected by [the pesticide] 2,4-D would be
to lay [sic] in it for a few days.”
** “The safety issue has been blown out of proportion. Such a
small amount of chemicals are put directly on plants…. [They
do] not affect animals or people.”
** “All chemicals [used] are nontoxic.”
GAO looked at printed advertisements by lawn care companies and
found the following kinds of claims:
** “Non-Toxic: Completely safe for humans, the environment, and
beneficial insects.”
** “End use lawn care material is classified as practically
non-toxic to humans, pets, and the environment.”
** “…is safe to use. It won’t harm flowers, foliage or fruit.
There’s no danger to honeybees or other beneficial insects. And
[this product] is safe to applicators….”
GAO asked EPA officials what they thought of these kinds of
claims and EPA officials said they were false and misleading.
Under the federal pesticide law [FIFRA–Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, Rodenticide Act], EPA can crack down on false
advertising with civil penalties up to $5,000, criminal penalties
up to $50,000, and up to a year’s jail term. However, GAO studied
EPA’s pesticide enforcement prior to 1986 and pointed out in 1986
that EPA was doing a poor job. GAO reported in 1990 that since
1986, EPA’s enforcement job has gotten even worse.
In 1978, Congress required EPA to take a fresh look at all
pesticides. Of the 34 major lawn-care chemicals now in use, not
one of them has yet been fully reassessed by EPA. However a
private organization[4] has testified before Congress that these
34 chemicals have many undesirable effects: 35% of them have been
detected in groundwater, 32% are toxic to birds, 62% are toxic to
fish, and 35% are toxic to bees. Across the country bees are
declining in number and farmers are wondering, if bees were to
disappear, where would they get the free pollination services
bees now provide? The 34 common lawn chemicals have other
problems: 29% of them cause cancer, 35% cause birth defects, 21%
interfere with reproduction, 59% are toxic to the nervous system,
38% cause kidney or liver damage, and 85% are sensitizers–they
cause some people to develop an allergic-type reaction to the
chemical. In extreme cases, people become entirely disabled by
exposure to a sensitizing chemical.[5]
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Constance Holdren, “Entomologists Wane as Insects Wax,”
SCIENCE Vol. 246 (Nov. 10, 1989), pgs. 754-756.
Descriptor terms: usda; pesticides; chemical industry;
wildlife; livestock; health; toxicity; herbicides; fungicides;
insecticides; epa; gao; fifra; cancer; carcinogens;