"Do your job."

EPA petitioned to add warnings to pesticides linked to cancer

It doesn’t seem like a big ask.

The stated mission of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) includes working to ensure that “Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced fairly, effectively and as Congress intended,” and to provide that “all parts of society … have access to accurate information” to manage human health risks.

So, adding cancer warnings on pesticide products containing ingredients the agency has found are linked to cancer should be a no-brainer. Right?

Think again.

Earlier this year, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety revealed that even when the EPA itself has designated pesticide ingredients as “probable” or “likely” to cause cancer, the agency rarely requires a cancer warning.

Today, the Center for Biological Diversity followed up by filing an “emergency petition” calling for an end to the EPA’s inaction.

In petitioning the agency, the Center for Biological Diversity is calling out years of EPA failures when it comes to warning the public about “known cancer risks associated with pesticides.”

“The EPA has found that 199 pesticide active ingredients have evidence of carcinogenicity. Of these, 124 active ingredients are still registered for use in the United States without the public being informed of these findings on pesticide product labels,” the petition states. And of those, 38 have been designated by the EPA as “probable” or “likely” human carcinogens, according to the petition.

Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement that it should be “ridiculously easy” for the EPA to address this regulatory shortcoming.

“Just warn the public of the serious health risks the EPA already knows about. In other words, do your job,” Donley said.

The petition highlights one aspect of the multiple deeply troubling actions - and inactions - of the Trump administration’s approach to pesticide policy. My friend Robyn O’Brien breaks it all down in several recent “#ChemGate” posts on her Substack.

And, of course, you can read the rest of this story, and others, at The New Lede.

As noted by multiple observers, the public is effectively playing against a stacked deck when it comes to seeking health protections from those appointed to provide such protection.

As the petition states: “Exposure to carcinogenic pesticides threatens the health and safety of all of us.”