The Rules That Should Protect Us From Pesticides Are Inadequate, Advocates Say

The Consumer Pesticide Safety Bill of Rights declares that Americans have the right to information and warnings about pesticides, including whether they are linked to cancer and other health harms, where they’re being sprayed, when they’ve been mishandled, and how much they’ve been detected in food and water.

It also asserts that consumers have the right for their children to be adequately protected from pesticides in their schools, in local parks, and in their food. Additionally, consumers in the U.S. should be able to expect that if a pesticide is banned in another country, U.S. regulators will quickly review that chemical to reassess the safety of its use here, and should have the right to seek justice in the court system if they believe pesticides have caused them harm. 

Several of these rights are enjoyed by some people in the U.S. but not by others. For example, a few states require farmers to notify the public before they spray pesticides, but most don’t. Different states also have varying standards on the use of pesticides in and around schools. 

Other rights emphasize consumer knowledge. “I think most consumers would be alarmed about the information that’s shielded from them,” says Brian Ronholm, CR’s director of food policy. 

For example, an analysis published earlier this year by the Center for Biological Diversity found that out of 4,919 pesticide products that contained ingredients classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a “likely” carcinogen, the agency has required just 69 of them to carry cancer warnings on their labels. Some pesticide labels carry cancer warnings required by other agencies or regulations, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or California’s Proposition 65. (We contacted the EPA for a comment and will update this story if we hear back.)

The bill of rights also emphasizes the need for tougher standards for pesticide safety. For example, the Food Quality Protection Act requires that EPA apply an extra margin of safety in determining what it considers to be safe levels of pesticides on food when there’s a possibility that children might be especially vulnerable to a given pesticide or when there’s uncertainty about a pesticide’s potential to harm children. This is known as the FQPA safety factor. But a 2020 study by an EWG scientist found that the agency applied the FQPA safety factor in only a small minority of cases. 

Another problem? When other countries or entities, such as the European Union, enact bans on pesticides due to their health risk, there’s no mechanism in the U.S. to force an immediate review of that pesticide’s safety and use here.

The last right in the bill seeks to address a weakening of consumers’ rights resulting from a Supreme Court case earlier this year, Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, which limited people’s ability to sue for damages when they believe they’ve been harmed by pesticides. 

“These things are all part of the same legal and policy challenge: That our pesticide laws are not doing enough to ensure that the worst pesticides are being banned, that we’re being properly warned about the worst pesticides, and that we’re moving quickly to stop using dangerous pesticides when other countries have acted to do so,” Faber says.

Tracey Woodruff, PhD, a professor of epidemiology and population health who studies environmental pollutants and their effects on health, applauds the Consumer Pesticide Safety Bill of Rights. She says it could have gone even further, however, by addressing the influence that pesticide corporations have on the rules governing their industry. 

“The systems are such that people don’t have a right to not be exposed to toxic pesticides because of the way the rules are set up,” she says. “The public is extremely upset about corporations and industry having influence on the rules about how decisions are made that relate to their health, including, in particular, for pesticides.”