EPA Must Protect Kids’ Health, Ban Brain-Damaging Pesticide
August 10, 2018 | Uncategorized |
In a major victory for kid’s health, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must finalize a ban on a deadly pesticide shown to damage children’s brains, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.
The court found the agency broke the law by refusing to enact a ban proposed by the Obama administration that would have stopped the deadly nerve agent chemical from being sprayed on fruits and vegetables.
Studies—including from the EPA’s own scientists—have shown that prenatal and early life exposures to chlorpyrifos harms the developing brains of children. It’s linked to lower birth weight and neurodevelopmental harms such as lower IQ, memory loss, learning disabilities, and delayed motor development. It’s so toxic that farmworkers are also routinely sickened by the chemical, and forced to visit the hospital after exposure in the fields.
In its decision, the court condemned the EPA for its years-long refusal to ban the chemical from being routinely sprayed on apples, oranges, broccoli, and dozens of other food crops. “If Congress’s statutory mandates are to mean anything, the time has come to put a stop to this patent evasion,” the court wrote.
Yes, in these times, it takes a court fight to make sure the Trump EPA follows our nation’s law.
That’s why we are part of a lawsuit to get the the EPA to restrict deadly toxic chemicals still on the market—because that’s United States law that the Strategy Center worked for ten years to get passed in 2016. For the first time in history, the law tells the EPA to verify that every chemical in commerce is safe and restrict the use of frightening toxic chemicals that pose unreasonable risk to human health and the environment.
On the list is lung-poisoning asbestos—which kills an estimated 40,000 Americans each year. The Trump EPA is refusing to properly evaluate and ban asbestos—and the asbestos industry has noticed, with one Russian asbestos producer publicly hailing Trump as “on our side.”
On the list is methylene chloride, a solvent known for at least 50 years to kill, in only hours, people who breathe in its deadly fumes, at work and at home.
On the list is trichloroethylene, a cancer-linked toxic chemical that for more than 30 years contaminated the drinking and bathing water of hundreds of thousands of service members and their families at the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
We can’t go backward, in the face of immoral threats to public health.
We can’t allow collusion with the chemical industry to destroy families’ health and safety. But we can’t fight without your support.