Laxity on Pesticides in Foods

When the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it will restrict the application of two widely used agricultural pesticides on fruit and vegetables, some environmental groups sued, charging that the EPA action is too little too late. That reaction typifies the stormy history of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, which was intended to protect children in particular from harmful pesticide exposure.

The 1996 law calls on the EPA to determine safe levels of pesticide residues for children, who eat more per pound of body weight and whose developing bodies and brains might be more sensitive to chemicals. Farm groups did not resist the new safety measure because lawmakers tied it to the elimination of a 1950 regulation barring them from marketing canned or processed foods with any detectable carcinogen residues.

Food manufacturers argued rightly that complying with the law, known as the Delaney Clause, had become impossible since detection methods had progressed from parts per thousand to parts per billion. Environmentalists, though nervous about losing Delaney, agreed in order to get sweeping review of all pesticides, particularly organophosphates, an older class of chemicals that is broadly toxic.

Since that harmonious moment, not much has gone smoothly. Agricultural producers have fought reassessments of pesticide residue standards tooth and nail, crying economic ruin and a dearth of evidence of harm. Proponents have responded that there is plenty of evidence of danger and that waiting for more is the moral equivalent of experimenting with children’s health.

The environmental groups that filed suit, led by the National Resources Defense Council, agree that the two organophosphates restricted Monday are particularly dangerous. One, methyl parathion, may no longer be used on fruits and vegetables; apples, peaches and green beans were among the crops found to have high pesticide residues in a Consumers Union study last year. But it has been three years since the law was passed, and the EPA should have done more by now.

There are alternatives to the most dangerous pesticides, though they might be difficult to use, more expensive or somewhat less effective. Farmers deserve more assistance, perhaps from the Agriculture Department, in adapting their growing practices. The price for failing to change could be high, as measured in the health of both children and farm workers and the purity of ground water and streams.