Chlorpyrifos, manufactured by DowDuPont, is a neurotoxic organophosphate pesticide that’s been linked to severe birth defects, brain damage and mental disorders in children, even at very low levels.
Yet despite these known risks, and despite new evidence suggesting that Dow knew for decades how toxic chlorpyrifos is to children, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still allows chlorpyrifos to be sprayed on more than 50 fruits, vegetables and nuts, including strawberries, almonds, oranges, broccoli and apples.
TAKE ACTION: Ask your member of Congress to cosponsor the Ban Toxic Pesticides Act of 2019 ( H.R.230), a bill to ban chlorpyrifos.
In 2015, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally said that chlorpyrifos, a highly toxic pesticide, shouldn’t be allowed in food production.
But when Trump was elected, the new head of the EPA reversed that decision. The courts intervened, the EPA appealed . . . and the legal wrangling drags on.
Meanwhile, chlorpyrifos continues to be sprayed on more than 50 fruit, nut, cereal and vegetable crops including apples, almonds, oranges and broccoli, with more than 640,000 acres treated in California alone in 2016, according to the New York Times.
According to a study conducted in 2012, exposure to chlorpyrifos during early pregnancy produced permanent damage to the fetus' brain architecture. That same year, the EPA banned the chemical from use around schools and other public spaces, though not from golf courses, parks and lawns.
Beyond Pesticides describes chlorpyrifos this way:
A neurological toxicant, chlorpyrifos damages the brains of young children: impacts of exposure, even at very low levels, include decreased cognitive function, lowered IQ, attention deficit disorder,and developmental and learning delays.
Yet still allow farmworkers to handle this pesticide. And we allow it to be sprayed on food!
We’re tired of begging the EPA to ban this dangerous pesticide. If the EPA won’t do its job, then Congress must act to keep this dangerous neurotoxin out of our food system.