Children & Pesticides: The Next Battlefield

Suddenly, the issue of pesticides and children has become a prominent part of our national debate, resulting in increased scrutiny of the structural pest control industry. What gives? After all, it wasn’t that long ago PCOs routinely “fogged” structures in an attempt to keep insect populations at manageable levels or sprayed baseboards and performed other pesticide treatments without being particularly concerned about the issue of child safety.

“No one, including myself would want to say anything that would lead to the presumption that it’s okay to be cavalier about pesticide use around children,” says well-known consultant Jeffrey Tucker, president of Entomology Associates, Houston, Texas. In fact, recent advances in formulations technology and IPM techniques designed to reduce pesticide exposure should be applauded, he says, but that doesn’t change the fact that “95 percent of the current political debate has little or no relevance to childhood safety. It’s a political issue. It’s being driven by organizations that benefit from spectacular (anti-pesticide) stories in the media.”

Bill Kolbe, training director of Western Pest Services, Parsippany, N.J., agrees.

“If environmental groups like the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP) aren’t creating fear, they’ll lose business,” he says, “and their business is their membership, so it’s in their best interest to raise concerns about pesticides.”

Yet there’s more driving this issue than simply rabid environmentalism. There’s clearly a political component to the debate, and perhaps most disturbing for the pest control industry, a mainstream political component.

“It’s a reflection of the current administration’s attitude about pesticides,” says Tom Diederich, vice president of government affairs for Orkin Pest Control, Atlanta, Ga. “We have a vice president who is an avowed environmentalist and various Clinton appointees who clearly have an anti-pesticide bias. As a result, I think there’s cause for concern among PCOs.”

NOT A NEW STORY. How did the pest control industry arrive at such a tenuous position? Many point to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children, as “ground zero” of the current debate. The 386-page report, published in 1993, concluded that the scientific and regulatory approaches in effect during that period did not adequately protect infants and children from pesticide residues in food. In addition, the report recommended the need to improve methods for estimating exposure to pesticides and for setting tolerances to safeguard the health of infants and children, key components of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) which was passed in 1996.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner responded to the NAS report by announcing a national policy to “consistently and explicitly” take into account the health risks to children and infants from environmental hazards when assessing environmental risks. Then, on April 21, 1997, President Clinton formalized the policy by signing an executive order making protection of children’s health and safety a priority of the Federal government.

“Our mission – our imperative – is to help make this world better, safer and more healthy for our children and their children to come,” Browner said in a speech five months after the executive order was signed. “Every time we set public health and environmental standards, EPA takes into account the unique vulnerabilities of children, to ensure that all standards protect children first,” a sentiment reinforced by Marcia Mulkey, director of the office of pesticide programs for the EPA. Speaking at the RISE Annual Convention in September, Mulkey said, “When it comes to children, we’ll go the extra mile.”

As if to further reinforce its commitment to children’s health, three weeks after the RISE Convention, EPA announced the formation of the Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection, a clearinghouse for research on children’s environmental health hazards. Jointly funded by the EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services, the “Centers of Excellence in Children’s Environmental Health Research” will be created at eight leading research centers throughout the United States. The centers – which were selected through an extensive peer review process by various health experts – will each receive between $1.2 and $1.5 million.

“These centers will address two of the most important areas of children’s environmental health – the causes of asthma and effects of pesticide exposure,” according to an EPA press release. “Five of the centers will be dedicated to reducing asthma. The other two centers will examine children’s vulnerabilities to pesticides, which can affect the endocrine system, reduce intellectual development and cause damage to the central nervous system.” The two centers focusing on the pesticide issue are the University of Washington, Department of Environmental Health; and the University of California at Berkeley, School of Public Health.

A LONG-TERM ISSUE. Clearly, the issue of pesticides and children isn’t going to go away any time soon. In fact, David Crow, a pro-industry lobbyist based in Washington, D.C., says the issue continues to be the “poster child” of the 1990s. “No one is willing to take on the women, children and infants issue,” he says. It’s too controversial. As a result, the pest control industry finds itself on the defensive, threatened by the provisions of the FQPA which require an additional 10-fold margin of safety be applied for infants and children, and an aggressive tolerance reassessment schedule for pesticides that could result in some of the industry’s most valuable classes of chemicals being taken off the market.

“You can’t argue with protecting kids,” says Rick Tinsworth of the law firm Jellinek, Schwartz &Connolly, Inc., which specializes in regulatory issues. “Everyone wants to do that.” The industry would simply like sufficient time to provide the data necessary to make sound scientific decisions.

“I would ask EPA to go slower,” says Crow, “to take their time and give us the necessary time to develop the science. It should be an evolution, not a revolution.”

WINNERS & LOSERS? So who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys” in this increasingly contentious debate? We asked a veteran of the “pesticide wars,” Bob Rosenberg, director of government affairs for the NPCA. “All kinds of emotional rhetoric emanates from both sides of the debate,” he observes. “I think the U.S. government and the people in its employ, despite being politically motivated at times, basically try to do the right thing. If there were products on the market that pose a significant risk to children, they would take the appropriate action, and up to this point they haven’t taken any extraordinary action.

“By the same token,” he says, “I don’t know anyone in the pest control industry who would knowingly do something that would harm children and infants. Having said that, are there things the industry can do to better protect children? Sure. Can the industry user fewer chemicals or less toxic chemicals or more IPM? Yes. There’s no question it’s a politically charged issue, but in the end I think reason will win out.”