"EPA bans pesticide's use on food crops, citing risks to health; Furadan was tied to '90s bird deaths" by H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press | May 12, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule yesterday to ban use of the pesticide carbofuran on food crops because it poses an unacceptable health risk, especially to children.
The insecticide, sold under the brand name Furadan, has been under EPA review for years. Its granular form, blamed for killing millions of migratory birds, was banned in the mid-1990s. The agency began its effort to remove the pesticide from the market in 2006.
Related: Fly Away Little Birdie, Fly, Fly, Fly
The EPA said the chemical still poses "an unacceptable dietary risk, especially to children, from consuming a combination of food and water with carbofuran residues." The ban goes into effect at the end of the year.
Why not immediately?
The EPA says carbofuran "can overstimulate the nervous system, causing nausea, dizziness, confusion and, at very high exposures, respiratory paralysis and death." The chemical gained notoriety recently when it was reported that herdsmen in East Africa were using it to poison lions.
FMC denounced the practice and said it was taking "aggressive action" to stop shipments to Uganda and Tanzania and beginning a buy-back program in Kenya. The American Bird Conservancy praised the EPA for acting to halt the use of the chemical in the United States.
Michael Fry, director of the group's pesticide monitoring program, said that while the granular form of the chemical was especially devastating to bird populations, "we know the liquid form has been killing birds, not as many as the granular form, but still in significant numbers."--more--"
