What debate?
Concerns about pesticide residue on fruit while doctors prescribe pesticide shampoos for kids with lice?

By Matt McKinney
December 16, 2006;  Minneapolis Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS - It's an iconic image of good health, and yet the supermarket apple consistently rates as one of the most likely fruits to score high on tests for pesticide residue.

The residues are very small, and most experts say the apples are safe to eat. But a vocal minority insists that the traces found on fruits and vegetables pose a threat to human health.

The debate, which has simmered for years, carries on despite a massive federal effort - known as the Food Quality Protection Act - to answer critics' questions about pesticides. The 10-year study, which concludes next year, has covered some 1,100 pesticides and nearly 10,000 "tolerances," or maximum allowed amounts, of pesticides on various crops.

The Environmental Protection Agency has nearly finished the mammoth task, approving 5,237 existing tolerances, modifying 1,200 others and revoking 3,200. The revocations mean that of the many possible combinations of pesticides and crops, 3,200 will no longer be allowed. (Some of the tolerances were canceled because no residues were expected, say for meat, milk and poultry.)

High standards: Researchers took extra care to consider the effects pesticides may have on infants and gave the EPA broad authority to study pesticides - everything from herbicides used on commercial farms to single cans of bug spray sold for use in the home.

What everyone seems to agree on is that our food supply today is safer for children than it was 10 years ago.

"Those safety standards are really the highest food safety standards in the world," said Anne Lindsay, the EPA's deputy director, Office of Pesticides Program.

There are critics of the government's review, but many scientists say that if the remaining pesticides allowed for use on food crops are handled properly, consumers should feel safe.

"It was a very big improvement over what we had before, particularly for children and pregnant women," said Dean Herzfeld, a plant pathology professor at the University of Minnesota. "The safety is enormous; some people have claimed overkill."

Biological contaminations such as E. coli now present a larger threat than chemical residues, said Herzfeld.

Banned chemicals: The EPA's assessment was ordered by Congress in 1996 when it passed the Food Quality Protection Act.

The act pushed through regulations that reduced or banned the use of some pesticides that once were used widely, among them: chlorpyrifos, an insecticide used on corn, cotton and fruit trees (brand name Dursban); copper chromated arsenate, a wood preservative; dichlorvos, an insecticide; diazinon, a pesticide used on crops, household and garden products; methyl parathion, an insecticide; carbofuran, a pesticide used on potatoes, corn and soybeans; and lindane, an insecticide used on various crops.

The review was scheduled to end last Aug. 3, but a few things remain to be done, according to the EPA.

The act has generally moved agriculture and the pesticides industry away from the more toxic family of organophosphates toward less-toxic alternatives, said Chuck Stroebel of the Minnesota Department of Health.

Toxic example: Take the case of azinphos-methyl (AZM), an organophosphate pesticide sold under the brand name Guthion. The EPA says it poses health risks to farm workers, pesticide applicators and aquatic ecosystems, and this month banned it. (It may be used on some crops until 2012, including apples, blueberries, cherries, parsley and pears. The time lag is to allow farmers to find replacements.)

Like many other pesticides, AZM has had its supporters and detractors. At a September hearing of the House Agriculture Committee, some members argued that there's no alternative for the pesticide, but the EPA said otherwise. The pesticide was banned two months later.

Still, for others, it wasn't soon enough.

"We were calling for that seven years ago," said David Wallinga, a doctor and director of the food and health program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis nonprofit organization. Wallinga said numerous studies have shown that organophosphates such as AZM harm fetuses by interfering with the development of their nervous system. "Do you really need these organophosphates when there are other safer, less toxic categories of toxins that can be used instead?"

More wanted: Wallinga said the Food Quality Protection Act hasn't lived up to its promise.

"The process that regulators use to estimate how people are impacted by pesticide exposure has not caught up with real life, where we know people are exposed to dozens if not hundreds of chemicals," he said.

But even people such as Wallinga acknowledge that the act has made food safer for children.

The act specifically directed the EPA to consider the harmful effects of pesticides on children. Children may be more likely to be harmed by toxic pesticides because they are still developing, tend to consume more milk, applesauce and orange juice per pound of body weight than adults and because playing on the floor or the lawn or placing objects in their mouths sometimes puts them in greater contact with pesticides. Studies had previously assumed the risk to adults only.

Some apple farmers have already banned AZM.

"We pulled it out of the program a number of years back," said Dennis Courtier, owner of Pepin Heights orchard in Lake City, Minn. He said the pesticide was the "big hammer" he kept at the back of his shed when other pesticides failed, but he now uses other techniques.

He's not a typical farmer, however. The nation's apple growers used AZM on 62 percent of the crop last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.