EPA to Strengthen Oversight of Pesticide's Impact on Children and Farmworkers

[Guest guest]

This is an important policy shift!

EPA to Strengthen Oversight of Pesticide’s Impact on Children and

Farmworkers

Release

date: 12/08/2009

Contact

Information: Dale Kemery kemery.dale@... 202-564-7839 202-564-4355; En

español: Lina Younes / younes.lina@... 202-564-9924, 202-564-4355

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December

8, 2009

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to

strengthen its assessment of pesticide health risks. EPA’s proposal would

include a more thorough assessment of risks to workers, including farmworkers

and farm children, as well as risks posed by pesticides that are not used on

food. The agency is asking the public to comment on the new approach and how

best to implement the improvements.

EPA

Administrator P. has made it a top priority to ensure that the

agency is working to protect Americans. She said: “Better information and

applying these tools will strengthen EPA’s protections for farm workers

exposed to these chemicals, and children living in and around the areas of

highest possible exposure,” said EPA Administrator P. .

“It’s essential we have the tools to keep everyone, especially

vulnerable populations like children, safe from the serious health consequences

of pesticide exposure.”

Under

the policy, EPA risk assessments for children, farmworkers and others, would

consider aggregate pesticide exposures from all sources in addition to the

cumulative effects from multiple pesticides that have similar toxicity. EPA

also would apply an additional safety factor to protect infants and children

from the risks of pesticides where the available data are incomplete. Currently

these analyses help assess risks of pesticides to the general public as

required by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

EPA

believes that pesticide exposure should be evaluated with common scientific

risk-assessment techniques, whether from residues in food or drinking water, on

lawns or in swimming pools, or in the workplace. The agency would routinely

apply the techniques to workers exposed to pesticide exposures on the job. By

incorporating these risk-assessment tools into its pesticide evaluations, the

agency would more thoroughly protect the most vulnerable populations, including

farm workers and children taken into agricultural fields.

The

proposed policy will be available for a 60-day public comment period after it

is published in the Federal Register.

More

information on the proposed policy: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/worker-rsk-assmnt.html

Amy K. Liebman, MPA

Director of Environmental and

Occupational Health

Migrant Clinicians Network

410.860.9850

aliebman@...

Migrant Clinicians Network is a force for

justice in health care for the mobile poor.

1 of 1 File(s)

EPArevisedRAmethods.pdf