Researchers who examined Dow Chemical Company-sponsored animal tests performed two decades ago on the insecticide chlorpyrifos found inaccuracies in what the company reported to the US Environmental Protection Agency compared to what the data showed.
And, according to internal EPA communication, agency scientists also had issues with the study interpretations, yet the agency approved the compound for continued use anyway.
“EPA staff scientists and staff were telling management there were problems,” said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was not involved in the current study but has worked on issues related to toxics, including chlorpyrifos, for decades.
“And management disregarded it.”
Those 20-year-old industry studies are still used by regulatory agencies such as the EPA and the European Food Safety Authority in approving continued use of the controversial insecticide, which is used on beans, citrus, corn, cotton, wheat and soybeans.
“Exaggerated trust in the reporting” by regulators led to a “failure” of both US and EU authorities to act on red flags, the authors wrote.
The results, published yesterday in the journal Environmental Health, are timely: The EPA is appealing a court decision that would mandate a ban on chlorpyrifos residue on food (which would effectively mean a ban on farm-use); and the European Union is considering a ban as well.
The Obama Administration’s EPA in 2015 proposed a ban of the chemical on food (that would have likely taken effect in early 2017), but President Trump’s former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed the decision.
In August, however, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to ban the chemical. The EPA has appealed the decision.
Multiple studies since the industry-funded research have shown toxic impacts, especially to children, from chlorpyrifos exposure. Health…