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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-EPA-Pesticides.html

EPA Reviews Group of Pesticides

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 10:24 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After reviewing the safety of one group of pesticides, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that only two of the 30 pose unreasonable health risks by acting together as cumulative poisons.

``It certainly gives us a high level of confidence in the safety of the food supply,'' EPA Assistant Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, who oversees the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

But Johnson said two of the organophosphorus pesticides -- Dichlorvos, or DDVP, used in pest strips in homes, and Dimethoate, sprayed on dozens of fruits and vegetables -- could pose health risks to the nervous system, causing headaches, nausea, weakness or even death.

``If it turns out that our concerns are valid, we will need to take action,'' Johnson said of the two chemicals. ``Banning them certainly is one of the options.''

Johnson said the findings, released late Monday, were issued just hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday rejected the third industry attempt to bar them from being made public. Phone calls for comment from one of the plaintiffs -- CropLife America, a trade group for the pesticides industry -- were not immediately returned.

Natural Resources Defense Council, the New York-based environmental group whose lawsuit prompted the review, said the EPA had ignored some of the biggest health risks from the chemicals and failed to adequately consider all of the threats to children.

Over the past several years, as a result of the EPA's ongoing review, 14 of 49 organophosphorus pesticides have been or will be taken off the market. For five of the remaining 35, the agency contends there is so little risk of exposure that the pesticides don't need to be considered for cumulative risks.

NRDC disagrees, saying EPA isn't taking into account -- both for these five pesticides, and more broadly, for the other 30 organophosphates -- non-dietary routes of exposure to the pesticides, such as airborne drifts from spraying and 1 million farm kids' frequent contact with them.

``When all the facts come in, it will become clear that EPA must take much more aggressive action against these poisons in order to protect American's children,'' said Erik D. Olson, an NRDC senior attorney in Washington. ``Kids are exposed more, and are more vulnerable to the toxic effects of organophosphates.''

Johnson said, however, that the EPA believes children are safe. ``Virtually all the uses of the organophosphates that are remaining pose virtually no risk to anyone, particularly to children,'' he said.

The EPA's review resulted from a settlement in a 1999 case brought by NRDC, environmentalists and farm workers. After EPA missed a 1999 deadline to review the most dangerous pesticides, including those used in foods most eaten by children, the agency agreed to look at 11 specific pesticides and the cumulative toxicity of four classes of chemicals, including the organophosphates.

The settlement was reached on Jan. 19, 2001, President Clinton's last full day in the White House, and has since been upheld twice, by federal district and appeals courts, in San Francisco.

Industry groups, who were not consulted, had called the settlement an abuse of power and demanded that the Bush administration withdraw from the consent decree. But EPA Administrator Christie Whitman looked over the settlement, decided it was fair, defended it in court and went ahead with the review.

The review marked the first time a federal regulatory agency, rather than looking at each chemical in isolation, has studied how an entire class of chemicals might combine with each other in the human body and pose cumulative hazards.

It excluded data resulting from controversial human testing by industry. The EPA adopted a temporary policy last December not to consider the data pending the results of a National Academy of Sciences analysis of the topic due to be completed a year from now.

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On the Net:

Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/cumulative

Natural Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/default.asp

CropLife: http://www.croplifeamerica.org

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