UFW Demands EPA Ban on Endosulfan,

From UFW Action Against Endosulfan;

Why does the US keep poisoning our children?

Deadly pesticide endosulfan banned in the European Union and 20 nations, but in the United States the EPA allows its continued use.

The UFW and a broad coalition of farm worker, public health, and environmental groups just filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop the continued use of the hazardous pesticide endosulfan. Science clearly shows that the use of this chemical puts the health of exposed farm workers and children in agricultural communities at risk.

Endosulfan is part of the same family of chemicals as DDT, which the EPA banned in 1972. It is persistent in the environment and can be found in regions far from where it was applied. The EPA’s own analysis confirmed that the pesticide poses severe risks to humans and only minimal benefits to growers. Approximately 1.38 million pounds of endosulfan were used annually in the United States as of 2002--the most recent year for which national usage data are available from the EPA.

Earlier this year, more than 13,000 Americans concerned about these health and environmental risks signed a petition urging the EPA to discontinue endosulfan use. In addition more than 100 environmental and public health groups recently sent a letter to EPA’s Administrator Stephen Johnson and more than 50 international scientists, medical doctors, nurses, and other health professionals have urged the EPA to take action. To date the EPA has not responded.

There’s plenty of evidence and no need for more studies. Join us in demanding that the EPA take action. Send your e-mail today.

To send letter visit;
http://www.ufw.org/

then click;
Take Action ---> Pesticides ---> Endosulfan.

The pesticide corporation are making small farmers dependant on these pesticides as the pesticides disrupt the ecosystem balance in favor of the target pest species. If the beneficial predator insects like ladybugs and dragonflies die off in greater numbers, then farmers will be more certain to return next year and purchase additional pesticides. Such is the nature of the pesticide treadmill, we need to get off of this cycle of dependency on toxic petrochemical pesticides and retore our ecosystem's balance. Feel free to add any of this additional info in your letter to the EPA of the effects of endosulfan on humans and the ecosystem as it applies to shorter life cycles of the target pest species and the longer life cycles of beneficial predator insects and humans.;

Consumers, farmworkers and residents living downwind of farms that apply endosulfan are in agreement that pesticides are not in our best interest. The responsibility of the EPA is siding with precautionary principles, protect people and ecosystem from exposure to carcinogens in endosulfans. Human health is greatly threatened by the application of endosulfan pesticides. The effects of the endosulfan toxins on the short life cycle of the pest insects is different when applied to humans with longer life cycles. Human bodies accumulate the toxic eccects of endosulfan in the form of mutations and other disruptions and retain these toxins for many years following initial exposure. The pest insects are able to evolve resistance to pesticides in only a few generations, while humans are not able to evolve resistance due to longer life cycles. This same principle of faster evolved resistance in target pest insect species applies to the ecological balance between the pest and beneficial predator insects like ladybugs and dragonflies.

The application of pesticides results in a treadmill effect of dependency on repeated pesticide applications as beneficial predator insects are slower to recover from the effects of the pesticides than the target pest species as beneficial predators have longer life cycles and are slower to evolve resistance to the pesticides in time for population recovery. Here the EPA fails again in protecting small farmers from dependency on pesticides like endosulfan as the continued usage of pesticides disables the natural life cycles of beneficial predator insects available to balance out the pest insect populations.

The most effective method to restore the populations of beneficial predator insects like ladybugs and dragonflies is to cease and desist in the application of the toxic pesticide endosulfan.


Other news on endosulfan from Beyond Pesticides;

"According to EPA, annual usage of endosulfan in the U.S. is approximately 1.4 million lbs. Current top uses by volume in the U.S. include cotton, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and potatoes. Endosulfan is registered as an acute toxicity class I (the most toxic) pesticide, and must bear the label “Danger.”

Endosulfan affects the nervous system and has been one of the most frequently reported causes of farmworker poisoning. In addition to nervous system affects, farmworkers and their children exposed to endosulfan have experienced congenital physical disorders, mental retardation, and death. While farmworkers are the population group most susceptible to the deleterious effects of endosulfan because of their close contact with the toxic chemical, endosulfan also poses a risk to the population at large because of common food, air, and water contamination.

Endosulfan is an organochlorine pesticide, in the same family as DDT and lindane, and like DDT and lindane, it bioaccumulates and has been found in places as far from point of use as the arctic. It is also a suspected endocrine disruptor, affecting hormones and reproduction in aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Because of these compelling reasons and in light of the fact that less-toxic alternatives are available, scientists and advocates petitioned the EPA in May to ban endosulfan (read the daily news blogs and access the petition).

The manufacturer of this endosulfan is Makhteshim Agan, an Israeli company that purchased the registration of endosulfan from FMC, which manufactured endosulfan under the brand name Thiodan. Bayer is also currently a registrant of endosulfan, but rumors have circulated that it plans to cancel its registration in the U.S. Makhteshim Agan is known as a bad actor company that purchases registrations of hazardous chemicals that other companies plan to cancel. Pesticide Action Network North America has been following the global use and registration of endosulfan, its health effects, and the most recent news stories on the MV Princess of the Stars. Its reporting on endosulfan is available here.

This tragic event reminds us that toxic pesticides create public health and environmental risks in every aspect of their existence from production to transport, storage, and use. In an expression of frustration with the all too common practice of putting profits over people, Deputy Minority Leader Satur Ocampo said succinctly, “There is a compelling basis for the ban. Health hazards versus the profits of the foreign firm using it.” The only way to prevent contamination and the effects that ensue is to ban the production and use of toxic chemicals such as endosulfan."

found @;
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=387