An E.P.A. scientific review panel made up of academic experts last July also had raised questions about some of the conclusions the chemical safety staff had reached. That led the staff to revise the way it had justified its findings of harm, although the agency employees as of late last year still concluded that the chemical should be banned.
Mr. Pruitt, in an announcement issued Wednesday night, said the agency needed to study the science more.
“We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment,” Mr. Pruitt said in his statement. “By reversing the previous administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making — rather than predetermined results.”
The United States Department of Agriculture, which works close with the nation’s farmers, supported Mr. Pruitt’s action.
“It means that this important pest management tool will remain available to growers, helping to ensure an abundant and affordable food supply for this nation,” Sheryl Kunickis, director of the U.S.D.A. Office of Pest Management Policy, said in a statement Wednesday.
Dow Agrosciences, the division that sells the product, also praised the ruling, calling it in a statement “the right decision for farmers who, in about 100 countries, rely on the effectiveness of chlorpyrifos to protect more than 50 crops.”
Though I can see why you cherry-picked the article for info relative to your displeasure of Trump and Republicans, they didn’t make the decision. It was Mr. Scott Pruitt. Write your state officials and voice your concerns. Let them hear your displeasure so they can voice that concern up the ladder. It is your right as an American and your obligation if you disagree with choice made.
Give em hell Frink.
DDT was such was a resounding environmental success, so why worry? 😉
Thank goodness a lot of farms around here are organic.
Since I am not a Graduated Chemist or Scientist I don’t know what the actual differences between DDT and Chlorpyrifos are.
I did look up these two and found this information.
Chlorpyrifos (IUPAC name: O,O-diethyl O-3,5,6-trichloropyridin-2-yl phosphorothioate) is a crystalline organophosphate insecticide, acaracide and miticide. It was introduced in 1965 by Dow Chemical Company and is known by many trade names including Dursban, Lorsban, Bolton Insecticide, Nufos, Cobalt, Hatchet, and Warhawk [5]. It acts on the nervous system of insects by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase.
Chlorpyrifos is moderately toxic to humans, and exposure has been linked to neurological effects, persistent developmental disorders and autoimmune disorders. Exposure during pregnancy retards the mental development of children, and most home use was banned in 2001 in the U.S.[6] In agriculture, it is “one of the most widely used organophosphate insecticides” in the United States, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and before being phased out for residential use was one of the most used residential insecticides.[7] On March 29, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt denied a petition to ban chlorpyrifos.[8]
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is a colorless, crystalline, tasteless, and almost odorless organochlorine known for its insecticidal properties and environmental impacts. First synthesized in 1874, DDT’s insecticidal action was discovered by the Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller in 1939. It was used in the second half of World War II to control malaria and typhus among civilians and troops. After the war, DDT was also used as an agricultural insecticide and its production and use duly increased.[5] Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods” in 1948.[6]
In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published. It cataloged environmental impacts that coincided with widespread use of DDT in agriculture in the United States, and it questioned the logic of broadcasting potentially dangerous chemicals into the environment with little prior investigation of their environment and health effects. The book claimed that DDT and other pesticides had been shown to cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds. Its publication was a seminal event for the environmental movement and resulted in a large public outcry that eventually led, in 1972, to a ban on DDT’s agricultural use in the United States.[7] A worldwide ban on agricultural use was formalized under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, but its limited and still-controversial use in disease vector control continues,[8][9] because of its effectiveness in reducing malarial infections, balanced by environmental and other health concerns.
Along with the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the United States ban on DDT is a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle (the national bird of the United States) and the peregrine falcon from near-extinction in the contiguous United States.[10][11]