Chemical ROULETTE

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I n the case of the widely used organophosphate malathion this back-and-forthing resulted in a substantial lowering of the pesticide's cancer rating. A team of EPA scientists, headed by senior toxicologist Brian Dementi, analyzed the health data provided by ChemiNova, malathion's manufacturer, and concluded that the chemical causes liver tumors in lab animals. The team presented its findings to the EPA's cancer review committee, which deemed malathion a "likely human carcinogen." Dissatisfied with this interpretation, ChemiNova convened a panel of pathologists to reexamine the data and draw its own conclusions. According to Dementi, the panel "severely, remarkably downgraded the initial [tumorogenic] findings," prompting the EPA's cancer committee to change its malathion ruling from "likely human carcinogen" to "suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity."

The change is not trivial. For likely carcinogens, the EPA must perform quantitative risk assessments and impose regulations accordingly. Alternatively, where there is merely suggestive evidence of a carcinogen, the agency can dismiss the danger as insignificant.

Dementi has questioned the outside panel's findings before the EPA's cancer review committee and its Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), but so far, he says, his concerns have "fallen on deaf ears." Meanwhile, a revised preliminary risk assessment was released for public comment last May, indicating that there was "insufficient evidence to assess the potential [of malathion] for causing cancer in humans."

Among the more common organophosphates, malathion is used on nearly 100 food and fiber crops. It is the third most frequently detected pesticide in our food supply, showing up in about 17% of items tested by the Food and Drug Administration (see " Hidden Ingredients "). It is also regularly used for pest control and in aerial sprayings to combat mosquitoes, as in the well-known 1999-2000 spraying over New York City to combat the West Nile Virus.

A CALL TO ARMS

Frustrated by the EPA's lethargic (and arguably compromised) review efforts, NCAMP's Feldman fumes that "The EPA has failed so badly in the pesticide arena that it is hard to envision the agency... ever adequately protecting the public."

Indeed, a full five years after the passage of FQPA and eight years after the initial NAS report that prompted it, OPs continue to account for roughly half of the pesticides sold in America. Some 60 million pounds are applied annually to 60 million acres of U.S. cropland, while another 17 million pounds go to insect control as well as home lawn and garden care.

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