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

38,906

Supporters spoke up in this action

Delivery to Environmental Protection Agency

Action ended on September 17, 2024

What Happens Next

Thank you to all who took action! We’re grateful for your support.

What Was 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.

Malathion is an organophosphate pesticide widely used 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 justify reducing 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)

Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.