The Chemical Industry's View
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The Chemical Industry's View
Date:
Mon, 11 Nov 2002 11:30:49 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
November 4, 2002
Volume 80, Number 44
CENEAR 80 44 p. 3
ISSN 0009-2347
Another View Of Pesticide Use
When advertisements funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund appeared
earlier this summer in the New York Times from the Mount Sinai Center for
Children's Health & the Environment on the deleterious effects of chemicals in
our everyday life, I wrote an editorial (June 17, page 3) and subsequently
asked some of the major stakeholders in this topic if they would like to
respond. Here is a response from Jay J. Vroom, president of CropLifeAmerica,
whose member companies produce, sell, and distribute virtually all the crop
protection and biotechnology products used by American farmers. Vroom was
raised on a farm and has an active business interest in his family's grain and
livestock enterprise. He has a bachelor's degree in agricultural science from
the University of Illinois.--Madeleine Jacobs, editor-in-chief
No matter how many advertisements that Mount Sinai Center for Children's Health & the Environment (CCHE) publishes in the New York Times, its claims concerning links between pesticides and children's health will never be anything other than speculation, innuendo, and in some cases bold-faced lies couched behind waffling wiggle-room phrases such as "may explain" and "appear to suggest."
None of the current scientific literature has shown anything other than purely speculative linkage between legitimate pesticide use and childhood health problems such as neurodevelopment, endocrine disruption, or brain cancer. Many other potential factors such as socioeconomic status, childhood disease and nutrition, and substance abuse or poor nutrition during pregnancy are powerful and proven predictors of these and other health problems.
It is irresponsible to use fearmongering and concern for children to manipulate the truth with antichemical rhetoric to obscure sound science. I see these recent New York Times ads for what they are--CCHE's self-serving agenda to eliminate pesticides altogether, regardless of their benefits.
Pesticides help safeguard public health by controlling or eliminating pests such as cockroaches, associated with asthma; mosquitoes, which carry West Nile virus, encephalitis, and malaria; ticks, which transmit Lyme disease; fire ants, which send more than 60,000 Americans to the emergency room every year; rodents, which bite more than 45,000 people yearly and transmit numerous diseases; and termites, which cause nearly $1 billion in U.S. property damage each year.
Pesticide crop protection reduces losses from damaging pests, competing weeds, destructive fungi, and devastating diseases. Crop protection with pesticides increases crop yields, improves food quality, and lowers production costs. These benefits contribute to the supply of safe, nutritious food.
It is pesticide use that guarantees the abundance of enough fruits, vegetables, and high-fiber grains--which may reduce the risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and other chronic diseases--to meet the recommended daily servings suggested by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
Moreover, without pesticide use, the Department of Agriculture estimates that production of many crucial crops--such as carrots, rice, and tomatoes--would drop by 36 to 48%. Lower yields would force farmers into plowing under more pristine land for farm acreage. To produce the amount of food currently grown based on the per-acre yields of the 1940s before synthetic pesticides, we would have to plow under about 300 million acres more than is currently being used--equal to the size of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona combined--and double the amount of cropland currently being harvested.
Pesticide production is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency requires pesticides to pass up to 120 toxicological analyses, chemical studies, and environmental evaluations to ensure product safety. The tests evaluate each pesticide's potential to adversely affect humans, wildlife, and endangered species. Special attention is given to the pesticide's possible effects on human health, including acute reactions such as poisoning and long-term chronic health effects. The process takes an average of nine years. Only one in 20,000 chemicals actually survives this rigorous scrutiny to become a commercial product.
Don't be scared by half-truths and misinformation. Challenge CCHE to show you sound-science proof to support its claims, and contact the Rockefeller Foundation and demand to know why they funded such outrageously misleading ads.
Then give your kids an apple--or a carrot or a peach--and know you are helping to reduce their risk for cancer.
Jay J. Vroom
CropLifeAmerica
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Chemical & Engineering News Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society
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Well Mr. Helliker, I would like to state that "all the crop protection and biotechnology products used by American farmers" are in reality pesticide POISONS no matter what "they' choose to call them, and there are many safe and far more effective and more economical (unregistered) alternatives.
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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