Myths vs. Facts

Considerable misinformation about chlorpyrifos and Dow AgroSciences has been disseminated from a variety of sources. The following addresses some of these claims.

Hiding Data

Claim: Dow AgroSciences was fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for hiding data on the hazards of chlorpyrifos.

Chlorpyrifos’ opponents often claim that the EPA fined Dow in 1995 for “hiding” from the Agency, for more than ten years, 327 lawsuits and other claims against the company of adverse effects relating to exposure to chlorpyrifos.

Fact: The incident in question involved a misunderstanding regarding the disclosure of unsubstantiated claims.

In 1994, Dow AgroSciences (then DowElanco) alerted the EPA to the fact that the company’s legal claims files had not been assessed under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) reporting requirements. The FIFRA section in question involved (Section 6.a.2) “requires pesticide registrants to submit factual information about the adverse effects of their products to EPA.”

Dow did not originally interpret FIFRA language to include unsubstantiated claims made in the course of product litigation. Upon further consideration, Dow alerted the EPA to the existence of these claims — the vast majority of which had been dismissed in court, abandoned, or settled for nominal amounts, and many of which, despite assertions to the contrary, did not involve chlorpyrifos products at all. Nonetheless, the EPA subsequently interpreted “factual information” to include lawsuits and claims. Although Dow disputed this interpretation in theory, we complied with the Agency’s request for legal claims file submission.

The EPA considered the submission “late” for the 1994 re-registration of chlorpyrifos and in violation of FIFRA. In cooperation with the EPA, Dow AgroSciences agreed to a negotiated settlement for the late delivery of the files.

At no time did Dow attempt to hide information. In fact, EPA would not have known about the files had Dow not voluntarily reported them. The EPA itself made no claim of attempted concealment and, in fact, reduced the late submission settlement amount because of Dow’s voluntarily bringing them to the Agency’s attention and for Dow’s full cooperation and timely disclosure during the course of the EPA’s investigation of the matter.

Today, Dow AgroSciences’ legal claims files are routinely monitored for information that EPA expects to receive. Dow AgroSciences has contracted with independent health facilities to take poison control center inquiries involving humans and pets and to report information from these calls directly to EPA. The company has also established a training program that all employees are obliged to undergo on a periodic basis to ensure that every employee understands the EPA’s expectations with regard to incident reporting.

False Advertising

Claim: Dow was fined $2 million by the New York Attorney General for falsely advertising the safety of chlorpyrifos.

A 2003 lawsuit brought against Dow is frequently cited as a case substantiating claims about the safety of chlorpyrifos. The misperception is that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer claimed that Dow falsely advertised the safety of chlorpyrifos products.

Fact: Dow paid the money as a negotiated settlement involving the Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s interpretation of an agreement previously reached for advertising Dow AgroSciences products in the state of New York. We did not agree with the Attorney General’s characterizations of our products.

The reality of the case involved a dispute about the interpretation of a 1994 accord, under which Dow agreed that, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the company would not describe its pesticide products as “safe” in advertising appearing in New York, even when the products were used as directed — and in spite of extensive research supporting the safety of those products.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer maintained that “advertising in New York” extended to Dow’s web sites and to the company’s responses to allegations made by opponents to various product registrations with the EPA. Dow did not agree that Dow’s company web sites fell under the accord, nor did we agree that the statements that Attorney General Spitzer found objectionable were part of the accord's provisions.

Nonetheless, in an effort to resolve the dispute and avoid protracted litigation, Dow paid the penalty. It should be noted that the dispute with the Attorney General involved statements made by Dow about a dozen or so Dow AgroSciences products — not just about chlorpyrifos. It should also be noted that payment of the penalty was made despite our disagreement with Attorney General Spitzer’s characterizations of our products.

Nazi Nerve Gas

Claim: Chlorpyrifos is derived from Nazi nerve gas.

Opponents to chlorpyrifos frequently claim that, as a member of the organophosphate class of insecticides, chlorpyrifos was derived from nerve gas developed by Nazis during World War II.

Fact: There is no legitimate comparison between chlorpyrifos and chemical warfare agents.

Although there are certain similarities among organophosphates in general, there are more dissimilarities between chlorpyrifos and chemical warfare agents, such as Sarin, than there are similarities.

Sarin is one of the nerve gases developed by the Nazis using organophosphates. Sarin is lethal by inhalation within minutes at 100 micrograms per minute per cubic meter. Chlorpyrifos testing with laboratory rats found there were no measurable adverse effects, even after 13 weeks of inhalation at the highest concentrations physically possible. Even the most sensitive measure of nontoxic changes in nerve enzymes found in the blood — cholinesterase inhibition — was not present at these exposures.

Moreover, oral doses of chlorpyrifos are about 100 times less toxic than chemical warfare agents. Scientifically, the comparison is: The single-dose oral LD-50 in the rat for chlorpyrifos is > 80 milligrams per kg of body weight (mg/kg/BW); for the organophosphate sarin, it is < 1mg/kg/BW.

Casarett and Doull’s Toxicology, a standard toxicology reference, puts assertions about nerve gas and organophosphate crop protection in perspective:

Banned in the U.S.

Claim: Chlorpyrifos is banned in the U.S., but Dow continues to sell it in India

Chlorpyrifos’ opponents not only claim that the product has been banned in the United States but also that, despite this alleged ban, Dow AgroSciences continues to sell it to less-developed countries, where opponents imply such products do not require registration or careful control.

Fact: Chlorpyrifos is not only registered in the U.S. but is also registered in about 100 nations worldwide, including India.

Chlorpyrifos has never been banned in the U.S. In addition to its continued registration with the EPA, chlorpyrifos is also registered in about 100 nations, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand. Chlorpyrifos products in India, specifically, have been registered for two decades. Chlorpyrifos products are among the most effective pesticides and are used to control more than 50 types of insect pests infesting more than 20 different crops, including cotton, rice, pulses (edible seeds such as peas and other legumes), and vegetables.

In 2000, by agreement with the EPA, Dow AgroSciences began the phase-out of U.S. residential uses of chlorpyrifos in response to stringent new EPA standards. Moreover, in 2005, Dow discontinued regulatory support for sales of residential use chlorpyrifos products on a global basis. This decision was made because the remaining volume of business could not support the increasing regulatory cost of maintaining these applications.

Dow AgroSciences continues to sell chlorpyrifos for agricultural use in the U.S., consistent with the EPA’s favorable assessments of the product’s health and environmental profile with exposures from authorized use. Based on a detailed regulatory review, India’s government permits the use of chlorpyrifos for both agricultural and residential applications. However, consistent with its 2005 decision to discontinue global regulatory support for residential use of chlorpyrifos, Dow AgroSciences now focuses its sales and support of chlorpyrifos in India on agricultural applications and not on suppliers of residential use pesticides.

More than a dozen India-based manufacturers continue supplying the Indian residential use market with chlorpyrifos products that Dow AgroSciences no longer supports.

Risk to Children

Claim: Residential uses of chlorpyrifos posed an imminent risk to children.

Dow AgroScience’s removal of chlorpyrifos for U.S. residential use in 2000 has been portrayed as a response to EPA-identified risks to children.

Fact: The EPA’s push for chlorpyrifos’ removal as a residential application in the U.S. was in response to new rules under the Food Quality Protection Act, not as a response to any imminent risk in humans

The EPA interpreted new rules under the Food Quality Protection Act as requiring that potential chlorpyrifos exposures to children must be 1000 times less than the lowest dose showing no measurable effect in laboratory studies. In its published rationale for its position on the residential uses of chlorpyrifos, the EPA specifically noted that its regulatory posture was based on a policy decision to increase the level of precaution, not on the presence of an imminent risk.

The following graphic helps put the EPA’s safety requirements regarding chlorpyrifos exposure into perspective:

• At the very top of the tower — 320 meters (nearly 1,050 feet) high — would be the dose of chlorpyrifos needed to cause a non-adverse effect in an enzyme measurable in laboratory tests.
• Halfway down the tower — 160 meters (nearly 525 feet) high — would be the level shown to have no effect.
• Only one centimeter (less than half an inch) from the base of the tower would be the EPA’s maximum allowable daily exposure from labeled use.

From this illustration, it is clear that the margin of protection available for the EPA’s registered uses of chlorpyrifos is very large.

These margins have been established by the EPA based on extensive research and testing and are intended to provide ample protection not only for the population at large but also for potentially sensitive subgroups such as women and children.

This point is illustrated by the following excerpts taken from EPA documents published at the time the agreement was reached to phase out residential uses of chlorpyrifos. In these excerpts, the Agency addresses hypothetical questions from consumers as to whether or not ongoing residential uses of chlorpyrifos during the phase-out posed a risk to people and whether or not food treated with chlorpyrifos prior to the agreement should be considered safe to eat:

Five years after agreeing to a voluntary phase-out of the residential uses of chlorpyrifos in the U.S., Dow AgroSciences announced that it was discontinuing its regulatory support for the registration of chlorpyrifos for residential uses in all nations around the world.

Today, Dow AgroSciences focuses its chlorpyrifos business on agricultural uses of the product. These uses were found by EPA to meet the U.S. legislative standard of posing “a reasonable certainty of no harm,” and the product remains registered for agricultural uses in more than 100 nations, where it continues to offer significant value to growers.

Widely used and extensively studied for decades, chlorpyrifos has registrations worldwide supported by an extensive proprietary and published database. More than 5,000 studies and reports have been conducted evaluating chlorpyrifos in terms of human health and the environment.

No other pest control product has been researched more thoroughly.

Tainted Breakfast Cereal

Claim: Chlorpyrifos posed risks to public health through contaminated breakfast cereal.

In 1994, 50 million boxes of a breakfast cereal were found to be contaminated with chlorpyrifos residues.

Fact: In 1994, a contractor deliberately made an unlawful application to oats of a chlorpyrifos formulation not authorized for such use. The cereal, nonetheless, posed no health risk.

In 1994, a cereal manufacturer contracted for treatments with an authorized, more expensive formulation of pest control: chlorpyrifos-methyl. But the contractor fraudulently used a less expensive chlorpyrifos product that had not been authorized for use on stored grain, then billed manufacturer for the authorized treatment.

Because chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl are closely related in structure and mode of action, U.S. regulators determined that the unauthorized treatments did not pose concerns for public health.

Nevertheless, the contractor was caught; stripped of his applicator’s license; brought to trial; convicted; and sentenced to five years in prison, three years of supervised probation and 200 hours of community service.

Additionally, although regulators had not found the cereal to be unsafe, the manufacturer was obliged to destroy 55 million boxes of breakfast cereal in its inventory, at a cost to the company of $140 million.

What the incident demonstrates is the stringency and rigor with which environmental laws are enforced in the U.S.: The unauthorized substitution of products was readily detected by routine government monitoring; the perpetrator was caught, shut down and sent to prison; and the manufacturer incurred significant costs in destroying its breakfast cereal in order to comply with federal law — even though regulators had determined that what had taken place (while clearly illegal) posed no threat to human health.