EPA, Reversing Stand, OKs Use of Pesticide

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it will permit growers to continue using a family of controversial fungicides, known as EBDCs, on 45 food crops, contending that the cancer risk from long exposure to residues on food was minimal.

The announcement, which reverses a preliminary decision to ban use of the chemical on all but a handful of crops, was based partly on a study financed by chemical companies that make the fungicides showing that residue levels on harvested crops were essentially safe.

The EPA also said that new laboratory studies indicated that the active ingredient, ethylenebis (dithiocarbamate), is less potent in its cancer-causing properties than previously believed.

The chemical will continue to be banned on 11 other crops for which its risks are deemed to outweigh its benefits.

Its preliminary decision in December, 1989, to ban most uses of EBDC immediately drew furious opposition from both growers and pesticide manufacturers.

EPA Administrator William K. Reilly said the turnabout was based on “the most extensive review, analysis and assessment of data ever undertaken on any pesticide. As a consequence, the agency is satisfied that those EBDC food crop uses that will continue do not pose a health risk to consumers.”

The chemicals, sold under such brand names as Mancozeb, Maneb, and Metiram, have been shown in laboratories to have significant cancer-causing properties.

But Reilly said the EPA now estimates that lifetime dietary exposure to the EBDC-treated foods would produce a one-in-a-million cancer risk--what the agency regards as “negligible risk.”

Environmentalists, who have waged a five-year fight to curb EBDC use--including filing two lawsuits in California--reacted with expected disappointment.

The action, Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Erik D. Olson said, “violates the federal law’s ban on adding cancer-causing pesticides to foods, and fails to protect the public from a clear and significant cancer risk.” Craig Merilees of the California Consumer Pesticide Project, questioned the validity of the marketbasket study since it was financed by the EBDC producers--BASF Corp., the DuPont Co., Elf ATOCHEM North America Inc., and Rhom & Haas Co.

In the marketbasket study, a task force organized by the companies collected and analyzed more than 6,000 food samples and asked the EPA to consider those results before making its decision. The EPA, which said it looks at all available data, agreed.

The study showed the potential consumer exposure to EBDCs through residues on foods to be “virtually non-existent,” the organization said Thursday.

But while allowing continued application on a variety of foods, including fruits, vegetables and nuts, the EPA said it will require workers who mix, load or apply the chemicals to wear protective clothing to minimize their exposure.

Products produced in the future also will carry labels recommending application in lesser amounts and urging longer intervals between use.

The 11 foods for which the use of the chemical will be banned are: apricots, carrots, celery, collards, mustard greens, nectarines, peaches, rhubarb, spinach, succulent beans and turnips.

Among the major crops that can be treated with the five chemicals are lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, almonds, pecans, bananas, apples and oats.

Only two of the chemicals--Maneb and Mancozeb--are now registered for use in California by the CalEPA, the state environmental protection office. Maneb is scheduled to be suspended because the manufacturer has not done all of the animal testing required under California law, which can be more stringent than federal regulations.

Reilly acknowledged that the crops that will not receive the fungicide treatments will have more damage from fungus or disease and, hence, higher consumer prices.

But he added: “These 11 uses had higher risks than benefits either because they had high EBDC residue levels--like leafy greens--or low benefits--like nectarines and apricots. We believe it is in the public’s interest to cancel them.”

Estimates are that growers use chemicals containing 8 to 12 million pounds of EBDC’s active ingredients each year. The fungicides protect crops in the field in humid areas and extend the life of fruits and vegetables after they are harvested.

Introduced in the 1940s, EBDCs for years accounted for about half of the fungicides used on fruits and vegetables in the world.

They came under increasing criticism when laboratory studies suggested that the exposure on food crops could lead to as many as 20 cancers among a million people over a lifetime--20 times the EPA’s accepted risk level.

A study by the National Academy of Sciences four years ago concluded that the family of pesticides was among the most dangerous chemicals still in use on food products.

Lawrie Mott, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said additional studies, including one by the National Toxicology Program, show evidence that ethylene thiourea, or ETU, which results when EBDCs break down, causes cancer in laboratory animals.