The ban on acephate comes a week after a ProPublica investigation highlighted the EPA’s controversial finding that the bug killer doesn’t harm the developing brains of children.

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a proposal this week to ban a controversial pesticide that is widely used on celery, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables.

The EPA released its plan on Tuesday, nearly a week after a ProPublica investigation revealed the agency had laid out a justification for increasing the amount of acephate allowed on food by removing limits meant to protect children’s developing brains.

But rather than banning the pesticide, as the European Union did more than 20 years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed easing restrictions on acephate.

The federal agency’s assessment lays out a plan that would allow 10 times more acephate on food than is acceptable under the current limits. The proposal was based in large part on the results of a new battery of tests that are performed on disembodied cells rather than whole lab animals. After exposing groups of cells to the pesticide, the agency found “little to no evidence” that acephate and a chemical created when it breaks down in the body harm the developing brain, according to an August 2023 EPA document.

  • @AA5B
    0•7 months ago

    My version clearly is minimizing the issue. The wording is misleading. However I believe it is just as accurate as the article and equally misleading.

    The points you highlight come from the author, not the source and include nothing to support whether or not it’s bad.

    • removing the limits sounds bad, but finding no danger in a study so relaxing the limits seems reasonable. Yet they say the same thing
    • it does seem like a huge jump but is it? If testing didn’t find a problem with that, then why not?
    • so it all comes down to the testing. Aside from testing inflammatory wording, we’re basing outrage on testing against cell lines instead of animals. Yet we’ve also been clamoring for exactly that: less animal testing. More importantly, not even an opinion much less evidence about whether this is normal or unusual, not even an opinion much less evidence on whether this accurately assesses the danger or not.

    Certainly the article makes this seem outrageous, but I’m very dissatisfied with how it gets there

    • Cosmic ClericEnglish
      0•7 months ago

      Well, I’m not an expect (curious if you are?), just a layman, so I’ll defer to your opinion on the matter. But I would hope that the changes would be described better by the authorities so that a non-expert/normal/everyday (not anti-vaxer type) person doesn’t get worried about them.

      Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

      • @AA5B
        1•7 months ago

        No, just someone who really dislikes poor reporting on scientific topics.