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NEWS RELEASE
U.S. Blocks Progress on North America Phase Out of Toxic Pesticide at Tri-National Meeting
Officials Ignore Public Health, Indigenous and Environmental Groups Recommending Elimination of Lindane
MONTREAL, CANADA—The U.S. representatives to a tri-national taskforce meeting last week in Montreal announced plans to allow continued use of lindane in the U.S, despite Canada’s plans to eliminate agricultural uses by the end of 2004 and Mexico’s stated goal of a full phase out of agricultural, veterinary and pharmaceutical uses of the pesticide. The U.S. position disregards the objections of public health, indigenous and environmental groups who are calling for elimination of the pesticide lindane, a neurotoxic chemical that has already been banned in 17 countries. Representatives from the three countries met in Montreal, Canada through September 28-30 to draft a North American Regional Action Plan for lindane through the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America established by NAFTA.
“The U.S. position allowing continued use of lindane is downright shameful,” said Pam Miller, the official Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) representative on the task force and Executive Director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics who was in the meeting last week. “The U.S. should take a lead role in getting rid of this old and dangerous chemical, not lag behind the rest of the world.”
Fifty-eight public health, indigenous and environmental organizations recently sent a joint letter to U.S. agency officials and task force members urging elimination of lindane. More than 400 health care professionals in the U.S. sent a similar letter. Environmental NGOs have also submitted a request to Bayer CropScience to voluntarily withdraw lindane products from the North American market. Bayer recently acquired Gustafson LLC, the primary distributor in the U.S. of lindane seed treatment products.
Lindane is also a current target of several international treaties. For example, it is included the "Prior Informed Consent" list of the Rotterdam Convention, and it will likely be one of the top candidates considered for addition to the list of chemicals targeted for global elimination under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
“This old, bioaccumulative pesticide damages human nervous and immune systems and is linked to cancer,” said Kristin Schafer, Program Coordinator for Pesticide Action Network North America. “The U.S. must reconsider its position and eliminate both pharmaceutical and agricultural uses of lindane to protect public health.”
Lindane is a known neurotoxin that causes seizures, damages the nervous system, and weakens the immune system. Exposure may also cause cancer and disrupt the human and animal hormone systems. Because lindane is highly persistent and travels globally via air and water, its continued use in agriculture poses an exposure risk to people far from the source. Lindane is now one of the most abundant pesticides in Arctic air and water, and northern indigenous peoples are exposed through their traditional diets. Lindane residues have also been reported in a variety of common foods in the U.S.
“As a pediatrician in California where pharmaceutical lindane use has already been banned, I know that more effective and less toxic treatments exist for headlice," said Mark Miller, MD, director of the University of California at San Francisco Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, an academic representative to the task force who attended the meeting. "Children are particularly vulnerable to this chemical that presents a danger to the young nervous system.”
Pharmaceutical use of lindane also contaminates drinking water sources. The Los Angeles County Sanitation District estimates that one dose of a lindane treatment for head lice can pollute six million gallons of water to levels exceeding drinking water standards. This threat to clean drinking water, and the enormous costs of clean up, prompted California to ban lindane shampoos and lotions in 2002.
The 2002 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Re-registration Eligibility Decision allows lindane to be used as seed treatment for six grain crops: corn, wheat, barley, oats, rye, and sorghum. These seed treatments account for 99% of lindane use in the U.S.
The North American Regional Action Plan for lindane is scheduled to be open for public comment in January, 2005.
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