Health and children’s rights advocates call on EPA to ban endosulfan

For immediate release, August 12, 2008

Contact: Pesticide Action Network North America
Karl Tupper (510-981-1771) karl@panna.org
Steve Scholl-Buckwald (415-203-4455) steveatpan@panna.org

Groups are concerned about effects of the pesticide on prenatal and child development

San Francisco – Pesticide Action Network, in coalition with 13 health and children’s rights organizations, delivered a letter today to U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson demanding that the agency cancel all remaining uses of the insecticide endosulfan.

The August 12 letter stated: "We are particularly concerned about the effects of endosulfan on prenatal and child development. Peer-reviewed science demonstrates that endosulfan is both an endocrine disruptor and a neurotoxicant."

The letter follows up on a February 2008 petition signed by 13,300 people across the country, a legal petition filed by the National Resources Defense Council that same month, three letters sent to the Agency on May 19, 2008 signed by 111 nonprofit environmental groups, 55 scientists, and 5 coalitions of Indigenous groups and tribes, and a lawsuit filed on behalf of PAN, environmental and farmworker groups on July 24.

"Endosulfan poses a threat to the health of children in the U.S.," the letter concluded. "This antiquated DDT-era organochlorine has already been phased out of agriculture in the European Union and at least 20 other countries. It is high time for the U.S. to take the health of our future generations seriously and ban all uses of endosulfan."

Full text of letter to EPA Administrator Johnson.

Signatories to the letter:

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Resources

• EPA revised endosulfan risk assessments:  http://www.panna.org/campaigns/endosulfan/docket
• Endosulfan health effects:  http://www.panna.org/campaigns/endosulfan/health
• Overview of endosulfan issues:  http://www.panna.org/campaigns/endosulfan