Effort to Ban Cancer-Causing Food Pesticides Unveiled

Taking the first step toward a 1990 ballot initiative, a Democratic legislator and a coalition of environmentalists Wednesday unveiled a sweeping food safety measure that would gradually ban the use of cancer-causing pesticides.

Called the Children’s Food Safety and Pesticide Control Act of 1990, the legislation would increase taxes on certain chemicals. It would also set pesticide tolerance standards specifically for children, who studies show consume a higher proportion of toxic chemicals than adults.

‘Thorough Reform’

“If it’s safe for children, it will be safe for everyone else,” said Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento), author of the proposal. “We are committed to accomplishing a thorough reform of pesticide laws to better protect children, consumers, workers and the environment.”

The proposal is part of a concerted political effort by some Democrats and environmentalists to seize on the emotional issue of food safety, particularly the dangers posed to children by cancer-causing pesticide residues on raw and processed foods.

Supporters of the legislation concede it has virtually no chance of passing the Legislature over the opposition of the agriculture industry. But they believe the proposal may fare well with the voters as a ballot initiative. Connelly said he has already begun organizing to put the measure on the ballot in November of next year--a move likely to inject the food safety issue into the 1990 gubernatorial campaign.

The proposal drew immediate criticism from farming interests who contend that California’s food supply already is the safest in the world and that most cancer rates are on the decline.

“If you believe the Chicken Little arguments presented by the proponents, you’d think people would be dropping in the streets from cancer,” said Merlin Fagan, a lobbyist for the California Farm Bureau. “There’s not a big cancer epidemic, and there’s not a big problem. So why are we beefing over the pesticide issue?”

The legislation is aimed at changing the same regulatory system that allowed the widespread use of Alar, a growth-inducing chemical sprayed on apples, despite tests indicating it caused cancer.

A nationwide scare over the use of Alar was touched off earlier this year when a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council said children who drank apple juice were at a greater risk of getting cancer. The environmental group is one of the backers of the initiative proposal.

Among its provisions, the measure would eliminate over a five-year period the use of 15 chemicals identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as the most hazardous of the cancer-causing pesticides used on crops.

The legislation would also impose a stiff tax on these pesticides and 51 other chemicals identified as possible carcinogens. The tax, designed to encourage manufacturers to halt production of the chemicals, would start at 25 cents per dollar of sales and increase each year until it reached 50 cents on the dollar. The money raised, roughly estimated at $7 million the first year, would be used to help develop safer methods of eliminating pests.

“It gives them a real incentive to go out and find the alternatives,” said Ralph Lightstone, a lobbyist for California Rural Legal Assistance who helped develop the proposal. The legislation would also strip authority to regulate cancer-causing chemicals from the state Department of Food and Agriculture--long considered by environmentalists to be a captive of the agriculture industry. Responsibility for determining safe pesticide levels would be transfered to the state Department of Health Services.

Tolerance levels--the amount of exposure to chemicals considered to be safe--would be set on the basis of food consumption by children, who take in a much higher ratio of fruits and vegetables for their body weight than adults at a time when their immune systems are still developing.

Attorney General Unit

In addition, the measure would establish an independent unit in the state attorney general’s office to enforce pesticide laws.

Among those in support of the latest measure are the Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League, the Environmental Defense Fund and the California Public Interest Research Group.

Many of the groups in the coalition have backed successful health-related initiatives in the past, including Proposition 99, the 1988 tobacco tax measure, and Proposition 65, the 1986 anti-toxics initiative.