Earthjustice and a broad coalition of partners have been fighting for years to convince the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban an entire class of poisonous neurotoxic pesticides.
Every year, these pesticides, called organophosphates, poison farmworkers and others who come into contact with them in communities near agricultural fields.
Over the past decade, an extensive body of scientific evidence from institutions like UC Berkeley and Columbia University shows that even at minimal levels of exposure organophosphates damage children's brains and lead to such alarming deficits as reduced IQ, autism and attention disorders.
After multiple Earthjustice lawsuits, the EPA has finally started the process of banning food uses of one of the most widely used of these pesticides, called chlorpyrifos. But it's time for the agency to ban not just all uses of chlorpyrifos, but this entire class of neurotoxic pesticides, to keep them out of our food, our drinking water, our schools and yards, and our bodies.
A total ban is what communities need and deserve, especially the farmworker communities that have disproportionately borne the burdens of pesticide poisonings and learning and memory impairments in their children.
We can't let these pesticides continue to poison people. Take action today.
Ban organophosphate pesticides now
Dear Administrator McCarthy,
I urge the EPA to ban all uses of all neurotoxic organophosphate pesticides immediately.
This class of pesticides has been proven to cause neurodevelopmental harm to children. They poison farmworkers and others in surrounding communities every year when they're sprayed in agricultural fields. The EPA recently acknowledged the overwhelming and extremely alarming evidence that exposure to these pesticides damages development of children's brains. It's time to act to protect children from reduced IQ, delayed development, autism and attention disorders associated with these dangerous pesticides.
[Your comment will be added here]
The EPA should take immediate steps to ban these brain-damaging pesticides in order to:
* Protect children from learning and memory impairments
* Protect communities from pesticide poisonings when the pesticides drift off crops and into nearby neighborhoods and schools
* Prevent contamination of our food with these pesticides
* Prevent contamination of drinking water with these pesticides
* Prevent worker poisonings and harm to their children
Action on these toxic chemicals is long overdue. I urge you to ensure that your agency moves quickly to ban these toxic pesticides now.
Thank you for your consideration of this important issue.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
