Questions have been asked of the California Department of Pesticide Control by Steven Tvedten of Get Set, Inc.  since Fontana Unified School District declined to consider a pesticide free IPM program because of the Department of Agriculture's opinion about only utilizing registered pesticides to eliminate pests.  The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has remained silent and not responded to these issues:

Lyndon Hawkins:

Are you protecting poison "industry" profits or the people of California?

In 1993, James C. Robinson and William S. Pease wrote "Preventing Pesticide-Related Illness in California Agriculture."  Six years ago their report noted in part:

Pesticides pose significant health risks to the men, women, and children who apply these toxic substances in fields and orchards and who harvest the food and fiber upon which we all  depend. California has led the nation in developing regulatory protections for agricultural workers, including mandatory training for applicators, restrictions on field entry after spraying, use of personal protective equipment, and provision of sanitation facilities. The effectiveness of these has been severely limited, however, by the toxicological, demographic, and economic realities of  agriculture. Hundreds of different pesticides are applied in thousands of different settings, posing different risks of acute poisoning, reproductive and nervous system damage, and  cancer. Farmworkers frequently lack the training to fully understand the risks they face and the political influence to successfully combat them. The farm economy is seasonal, reliant on contractors to manage labor, and exempt from much of the basic social legislation that protects workers'  interests in other sectors.

The traditional regulatory approach has been ineffective in controlling occupational health risks in agriculture. A fundamentally new strategy is needed, one that will include three components.

First, a new risk assessment approach is needed to identify in an expeditious manner the most hazardous pesticides needing control, using available data on acute and chronic risks to farmworkers, to their communities, and to the rural ecosystem. The current regulatory system has amassed an enormous quantity of information but has failed to develop a mechanism for translating the science into a priority ranking for public policy.

Second, a new risk management approach is needed to focus attention on high-priority problems, establish genuinely protective controls, and effectively enforce the  measures taken. The current system has achieved some successes but is falling further and  further behind the changes in use  patterns and labor relations. -

Third, and most importantly, a new risk prevention approach is needed that promotes the reduction of chemical dependency and substitution of less-toxic alternatives. Environmental policy in other arenas is shifting from an emphasis on "end of pipe" controls to "pollution prevention" through changes in what is being produced and how it is being produced. For pesticides, the analogous paradigm shift will be from "safe use"  to a socially and environmentally "sustainable"  agriculture.

How well have we been "regulated"?
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Pesticide risk assessments are supposedly used to "scientifically" justify exposing humans and their animals to toxic pesticide poison contamination against their will and without their consent for profit..  While the poison "industry" routinely releases, sprays and dumps "registered" pesticide poisons into unsuspecting  people's food, air, water and bodies, certain "scientists" estimate just how much of this "registered" pesticide poison pollution is "safe" or "acceptable," but these "scientists" do not bother to ask us what we think or to require the pesticide producers even consider, much less implement, any (safe or least-toxic) alternatives, techniques, controls or products rather than using only their specific pesticide poison's active ingredient.  How can you honestly asses any risk/benefit, if you only "compare" one "control" choice?  We all assess hundreds of risks every day.  We decide when we will cross a street; whether we will pass a car or not; whether something is too hot to lift with our bare hands, but even if we do not get hurt, we don't pretend these various activities are "safe," and we continue to consider all of our options before taking on any risk, and we personally choose to take any of these risks!  The unknown threats to our lives and environment presented by governmental pesticide risk assessments arise from three main sources.  First, most governmental pesticide poison risk assessments attempt to describe a "safe" or "acceptable level of harm" caused by only acute exposure to only the "registered" active ingredients in the pesticide poisons and totally ignore all of the "inerts" and metabolites and transformation products and synergistic effects of the entire poison compound.  Secondly, pesticide risk assessments do not even consider, let alone assess, any of the many safe alternatives to "registered" pesticide poison use, and make us take all of these terrible unknown toxic risks with no personal choice in the matter.  Third and most important,  how can there be any validity to  a risk/benefit formula when none of the  "registered" poisons  can eliminate, control or even "hold the line" as evidenced by the total failure of all the "registered" poisons to even slow down the fire ant invasion?  If we never made it safely across a street, we would either build a bridge, or a tunnel or find a different way.  Sadly, Mr. Hawkins you apparently do not care if we make it across the street safely, only that we (like lemmings) do it your chemically dependent (poisonous) way!

In 1991 and 1992 the San Francisco Poison Control Center reported almost 1,000 adverse health effects due to "registered" pesticide poison exposure in California, one-fifth of which were children aged 5 or younger.  These reported poisonings, obviously, represent only a portion of the total health problem in California since they totally ignore all unreported poisonings and all of the chronic health effects due to long-term poison exposures.

Seeing as you and your Department of Pesticide Regulation still will not "legally" allow the use of any unregistered, least-toxic alternatives, e.g., soap and water, to safely control insects in California and prevent the continual poisoning of the California population, it is wonderful that local California governments, e.g., San Francisco, can legally by-pass you in order to reduce "registered" chemical (poison) dependence and all of the subsequent contamination and health problems themselves.
Hopefully, more and more governmental units in the State of California will choose to protect their people!