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| Dear Friend, |
| In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency listened to farmworker groups, public health advocates, its own scientists, and 50,000 Earthjustice supporters who called on it to ban the dangerous pesticide chlorpyrifos. This was a significant victory — but chlorpyrifos is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s just one chemical in an entire class of nerve-agent pesticides called organophosphates, which, like chlorpyrifos, are deeply harmful to children’s brain development and toxic to farmworkers. |
| Once the EPA banned chlorpyrifos, Earthjustice filed a petition (a type of legal request) urging the EPA to ban organophosphates by October 1, 2022, the deadline Congress gave the EPA to take action on older pesticides. The EPA has been silent on the issue, except to admit it will miss the deadline. |
| But 30,000 Earthjustice supporters told the EPA to comply with the petition, and the agency finally opened up a comment period for organophosphates. Now is our chance to convince the EPA that organophosphates have no place in our food system. |
| Organophosphates are acutely neurotoxic. They make people sick with symptoms like headaches, nausea, dizziness, breathing difficulties, and at very high exposures even seizures and death. Even more troubling, children are at risk of reduced IQ, autism, and attention deficit disorders at very low levels of exposure. |
| Organophosphates are commonly found in our drinking water and on our produce, including leafy greens, berries, and fruits. People living near fields where organophosphate pesticides are sprayed can become sick from just breathing the air. Workers are the most at risk from exposure on the job, plus increased contamination of their drinking water and food. The only way to protect people is to ban organophosphates as quickly as possible. |
| The EPA has a legal and moral obligation to protect farmworkers, children and communities. We are going to do everything in our power to hold them accountable. Join us in continuing the fight by submitting a public comment in support of banning organophosphates. |
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Sincerely,
Patti Goldman
Senior Attorney |
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| Earthjustice, 50 California Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94111 |
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| Photo Credits: A farmworker spraying pesticides in a soybean field. (Ittipon / Shutterstock) |
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