Breaking News: Oct. 1999, Dow on the Defensive

AVON, COLO. – Sept. 9 was the day when specialty pesticide manufacturers realized the frightening reality of the Food Quality Protection Act and one manufacturer was forced to call for help from its products’ end users.

This was the day when Dow AgroSciences, Indianapolis, Ind., announced the results of the Environmental Protection Agency’s preliminary reassessment of chlorpyrifos, the active ingredient in its popular insecticide Dursban. Chlorpyrifos was re-evaluated during the EPA’s examination of all organophosphate products.

The EPA proposal included significant reductions in the acceptable exposure levels for chlorpyrifos, thereby threatening currently approved uses for the product such as applications to turf by lawn care operators.

Even before the release of this reassessment, the first significant reassessment for the lawn care industry, pesticide manufacturers have openly criticized the EPA due to what they believe is the Agency’s non-scientific approach to reevaluating these products. The jeopardy now facing Dursban only enflamed this criticism.

“This is complete madness,” asserted Tim Maniscalo, manager for government and public affairs for Dow AgroSciences. “The EPA doesn’t have a good handle on how to assess non-food uses of these products.”

In the reassessment of chlorpyrifos, Maniscalo explained that the EPA disregarded research Dow AgroSciences conducted involving approximately 10 humans in favor of its own research involving three dogs.

As a result, Dow AgroSci-ences may be forced to remove all lawn care uses from the Dursban label in order to continue selling the product into the much larger agricultural market if the EPA won’t alter its reassessment.

CALL TO ARMS. The EPA is scheduled to react to Dow AgroSciences’ response to the preliminary reassessment in the first week of October, at which time the Agency will release its proposal for Dursban’s re-registration and begin a 90-day public comment period. A final ruling on the product could come as early as July 2000.

Maniscalo and Dan Bouck, communications manager for the Dow AgroSciences, emphasized the importance of lawn care operators expressing their support for Dursban to the EPA via letters or the Internet.

“What users of the product need to do is tell the EPA why they use Dursban,” noted Bouck. “The EPA needs to see the benefits of this product.”

“The EPA reassessment procedure categorizes risk only and doesn’t account at all for a product’s benefits,” noted Maniscalo. “Not measuring the benefits of a product makes revoking tolerances much easier for the EPA.”

While this issues involves one product from one manufacturer, Bouck warned lawn care operators and other manufacturers to prepare for similar battles over other products in the coming years.

“This is not just Dow AgroSciences vs. the EPA or environmentalists vs. industry,” observed Bouck. “This reassessment represents an indictment of the specialty pesticide industry.”

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“This industry needs to realize this is going to be a way of life for the next five to 10 years, and we need to pay attention every time a product important to us goes through reassessment,” agreed Maniscalo. – Bob West