EPA proposes reapproving uses of pesticide linked to brain damage in children

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to continue to allow uses of a pesticide that’s been linked to brain damage in children. 

In a proposed interim decision dated Thursday, the EPA continued to allow uses of the chemical chlorpyrifos, which agricultural workers can be exposed to through their jobs and that the general public can be exposed to through food. 

However, the public has 60 days to comment on the proposal, meaning that it will likely be up to President-elect Joe Biden’s administration to make the final decision on whether to approve the continued uses because his inauguration is just 47 days away. 

Studies have linked chlorpyrifos exposure to issues such as lower IQ, impaired working memory and prolonged nerve and muscle stimulation. 

However, a recent risk assessment by the agency argued that the “science addressing neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved.”

An agency spokesperson has previously told The Hill after the risk assessment that the EPA had “undertaken considerable efforts to assess the available chlorpyrifos data, providing a detailed discussion of the strengths and uncertainties associated with the epidemiology studies.”

Opponents have argued that using the pesticide should be prohibited in light of the studies linking it to neurodevelopmental issues. 

“Trump’s EPA continues to fail to protect our children from this brain-damaging poison,” Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.  

“Chlorpyrifos needs to be banned. … This is a disgraceful parting gift to the pesticide industry from [Administrator Andrew] Wheeler and his cronies in the EPA,” Donley added. 

In 2015, the Obama administration proposed banning its use on food and crops. However, in 2017, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed course, saying that further study was warranted. 

“We are returning to using sound science in decisionmaking — rather than predetermined results,” he said at the time.

The new proposal from EPA would place new restrictions on how chlorpyrifos can be applied and add requirements for personal protective equipment use.

Donley argued that these measures are “wholly inadequate.”

“In some ways it is better than nothing … but I would actually argue it’s worse than nothing because it puts out the guise that a regulatory agency is doing something and that might make people very complacent,” he told The Hill.