It’s Thursday, August 19, and the EPA finally banned a pesticide linked to neurological damage in children.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put a stop to the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on food crops, reversing a decision made under the Trump administration that allowed its continued use on vegetables and fruits. “After the delays and denials of the prior administration, EPA will follow the science and put health and safety first,” said EPA administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement to the press.
The prohibition will effectively reduce the use of the chemical in the country by about 90 percent, activists said. Despite robust science linking the pesticide to neurological damage and developmental disorders in children exposed either directly or in utero, chlorpyrifos has been used since the mid-1960s to kill insects and other pests on farms.
Farmworkers’ organizations and environmental and public health groups celebrated the decision, which is the latest development in a decade-long battle to outlaw the chemical. In 2007, environmental groups asked the EPA to ban the pesticide, and in 2015 the Obama administration began the process of prohibiting it. However, Trump’s EPA ignored the Obama-era recommendations, declining to ban the pesticide in 2017. Environmental groups appealed that decision, and earlier this year, a court ordered the EPA to either prove the pesticide is harmless or ban its use on food.
“Today EPA is taking an overdue step to protect public health,” Regan said.
The Smog
Need-to-know basis
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