Action Alerts

The Environmental Protection Agency is failing to protect us from this neurotoxic pesticide

What's At Stake

Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs has just proposed to re-register a neurotoxic pesticide for use on our food and in our environment even though that pesticide has been linked to learning disabilities and behavioral disorders?

It’s time for real change. The EPA is collecting comments for the public to weigh in on the risk assessment for malathion and we have until September 16 to urge the EPA to protect children and farmworkers from exposure.

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Malathion is a widely used organophosphate pesticide on raspberries, blueberries, tomatoes, alfalfa, many other fruits and vegetable crops, and is even used at Christmas tree farms. People are exposed to malathion through food, drinking water, pick-your-own farms, as well as from living near or working in the fields where pesticides are sprayed. Even at low levels of exposure, malathion can lead to serious negative health effects.

The EPA is reevaluating organophosphate health risk studies to decide whether to uphold safeguards for children and farmworkers. The Agency claims in a new risk assessment that malathion is 100 times less dangerous than it previously thought, even at the same exposure and toxicity levels. This proposed action to re-register the chemical without additional health protections relies on a misguided new approach to evaluating organophosphates, which includes the unprecedented use of petri-dish tests to reduce children’s health protections.

By improperly downplaying the known risks of organophosphate exposure, EPA is squandering a critical chance to safeguard the least-protected, especially farmworker communities, when the Agency should be doing the opposite.

Organophosphate pesticides are putting our health at risk, especially for children and farmworkers. EPA’s failure to properly regulate these neurotoxins is unacceptable. Join us in demanding action now. Send a letter to EPA today.

Agriculture workers in a field next to an elementary school.
Agricultural fields surround an elementary school in Salinas, California. (Martin Do Nascimento / Earthjustice)

52 Days Remain

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