One would think it was something from a Monsanto horror-story...
EPA prior to director Scott Pruitt's signing on was about to end this substance from infiltrating foodstuff's in the US. However, Pruitt signed a document saying ALLOW IT to continue to be used.
What is this pesticide?
It is called Chlorpyrifos.
Chemical Class: Organophosphate insecticide (nerve agent)
Uses: on food and feed crops, golf courses, as a non-structural wood treatment, and as an adult mosquitocide
Health and Environmental Effects
- Cancer: Not documented
- Endocrine Disruption: Yes (30 studies)
- Reproductive Effects: Yes (6 studies)
- Neurotoxicity: Yes (8 studies)
- Kidney/Liver Damage: Yes (17 studies)
- Sensitizer/ Irritant: Yes (4 studies)
- Birth/Developmental: Yes (6 studies)
- Detected in Groundwater: Yes (6 studies)
- Potential Leacher: Yes (6 studies)
- Toxic to Birds: Yes (8 studies)
- Toxic to Fish/Aquatic Organisms: Yes (8 studies)
- Toxic to Bees: Yes (8 studies)
Status - (prior to Pruitt's rescinding the ban)
EPA and Dow Chemical agreed to stop the sale of most residential uses because of health risks to children.
ref: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/reso...pesticideid=17
More - http://www.motherjones.com/environme...ging-pesticide (Mother Jones)(3-29-2017): EPA director Scott Pruitt signed an order denying the agency's own proposal to ban chlorpyrifos, according to a Wednesday afternoon press release.
"We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment,” Pruitt said in a written statement.
“By reversing the previous Administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making – rather than predetermined results.”
By Friday, President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency will have to make a momentous decision: whether to protect kids from a widely used pesticide that's known to harm their brains—or protect the interests of the chemical's maker, Dow AgroSciences.
The pesticide in question, chlorpyrifos, is a nasty piece of work. It's an organophosphate, a class of bug killers that work by "interrupting the electrochemical processes that nerves use to communicate with muscles and other nerves," as the Pesticide Encyclopedia puts it. (nerve agent).
Chlorpyrifos is also an endocrine disrupter, meaning it can cause "adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects," according to the National Institutes of Health.
Low doses of chlorpyrifos inhibits kids' brain development, with effects ranging from lower IQ to higher rates of autism.
Major studies from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the University of California-Davis, and Columbia University have found strong evidence that low doses of chlorpyrifos inhibits kids' brain development, including when exposure occurs in the womb, with effects ranging from lower IQ to higher rates of autism.
Several studies—examples here, here, and here—have found it in the urine of kids who live near treated fields.
In 2000, the EPA banned most home uses of the chemical, citing risks to children.
Stephanie Engel, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina and a co-author of the Mount Sinai paper, says the evidence that chlorpyrifos exposure causes harm is "compelling"—and is "much stronger" even than the case against BPA (bisphenol A), the controversial plastic additive.
She says babies and fetuses are particularly susceptible to damage from chlorpyrifos because they metabolize toxic chemicals more slowly than adults do. And "many adults" are susceptible, too, because they lack a gene that allows for metabolizing the chemical efficiently, Engel adds.
But even after banning chlorpyrifos from the home, the EPA allowed farms to continue spraying it.
While US farmers eased up on it in recent years, they're still using quite a bit, mainly on corn and soybeans in the Midwest and on fruit, vegetable, and orchard crops in Washington, California, and the Southeast.
About a fifth of all the chlorpyrifos applied on US farms happens in California.
There, the main target crops are alfalfa, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, tomatoes, and strawberries.
Is there an antidote? For a poisoning incident, the treatment is similar to having been exposed to a weapon of mass destruction, a Nerve Agent.
In addition to atropine, pralidoxime (2-PAM) and benzodiazepines (eg, diazepam).are mainstays of medical therapy.Antidote and Treatment of Chlorpyrifos Intoxication. Atropine (a parasympatholytic drug) is the antidote for the acute muscarinic symptoms, the most dangerous ones. It is an antagonist of acetylcholine in the muscarinic receptors of the nervous system.
Reported LOW dose exposure:
Relatively mild poisoning can result in eye watering, increased saliva and sweating, nausea and headache. Intermediate exposure may lead to muscle spasms or weakness, vomiting or diarrhea and impaired vision. Symptoms of severe poisoning include seizures, unconsciousness, paralysis, and suffocation from lung failure.
Dow Chemical itself says on its website for the neuro-toxin that Farm Workers should be monitored for "cholinesterase" inhibition (a symptom of poisoning by the nerve agent). http://www.chlorpyrifos.com/human-he...rm-workers.htm
On the Dow Chemical Health Page for Chlorpyrifos, they cite "studies" that show there is no "real risk".
The substance has been withdrawn from regular "consumer use" (home and workplace use), but it is allowed worldwide on foodstuff (alfalfa, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, tomatoes, and strawberries), cotton, golf courses..
Dow Chemical does admit: "Sensitivity of chlorpyrifos to a large variety of aquatic and terrestrial wildlife has been determined under laboratory conditions, including birds, mammals, fish, water fleas, earthworms, and honeybees.."
Cleaning food sprayed with chlorpyrifos
(above from http://www.academicjournals.org/jour...t/4C4879459401)
Tamarind juice solution: 50 g of tamarind without its seed was weighted. Then, 1 Litre of water was added to tamarind and it was soaked for 15 min.
As shown in Table 3 (above), after the cauliflower had been cleaned using five types of cleaning solutions, the removal rates of chlorpyrifos by using tamarind juices solutions is very good compared to others cleaning solutions. While filtered flour and vinegar solutions removal rates are the same which is less than 20%. However, by using soda-salt solution and tap water, there are no removal of chlorpyrifos detected.