September 2, 1999
 

Paul H. Gosselin
Acting Chief Deputy Director
California Department of Pesticide Regulation
830 K Street
Sacramento, CA 95814-3510

Re: Kleen Kill® Enzyme Cleaner and Not Nice to Lice® Cosmetic Shampoo

Dear Mr. Gosselin:

Please be advised that we are in the process of changing the name of our company from Jen-Par Enterprises to Safe2Use to more appropriately reflect the line of products and services we represent.

We have received and have been reviewing your 8/11/99, follow-up letter regarding your investigation of certain cleaning and/or cosmetic products that we have the pleasure of representing here in California, specifically Kleen Kill® Enzyme Cleanser and Not Nice to Lice® Nit Remover and Cosmetic Cleanser which contain only Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) materials.

We are trying to understand the true intent and direction of your 8/11/99 letter so we can follow and successfully comply with all of your requests and determinations.  As you were so kind to offer us your help and/or promised to reply if we have any questions about our compliance, we are writing you once again.

In your letter, you state:

“If you wish to sell your product as a cleaner and not as a pesticide, you may do so by removing the following from your labeling:

     1)     The term “Kill” in your brand name.
     2)     The entire statement in the “Warning” box
     3)      Any reference to a web site that advocates a pesticidal use of the product and any similar references in your advertising literature.

1)    Your request to remove from labeling:    The term “Kill” in your brand name.

Kleen Kill® is not our brand name, nor is it our label; it is in fact a registered trademark and is owned by the registrant and the manufacturer, Ginesis Natural Products, Inc.  We have no actual control over the Ginesis name or label at this time.

In order to comply with your request in California, I will ask the Manufacturer to design a private (California) label on our behalf that does not include the word kill.   However, I have a few questions that need your further clarification and/or comments:

• Do you find it objectionable to continue to state on the new Ginesis (GRAS) label that it is “not sold as a pesticide”?
• What name would you suggest that we call this non-toxic (GRAS) cleaning product?  It will be very expensive to design and print a private label for sale just in California and we certainly want to avoid any future conflict with your Department and/or costs.
• Finally, if there is any remaining material that would you like removed from or added to this (GRAS) label.

2)    Your Request to remove from labeling:     The entire statement in the “Warning” box

This is somewhat unclear since you appear to be speaking of bottle labeling but there is no specific “warning box” on the label.  Do you mean the bottle warning or “Caution” which advises to keep this and all other cleaners out of the reach of children?  Or do you mean the advisement that Kleen Kill® is pathogenic to insects, fungi, mold and mildew?

Or are you referring to this warning:

 “According to Stephen L. Tvedten, Kleen Kill®* Enzyme Cleaner is effective and safe for use on or around humans and animals.  However, these specially formulated cleaning enzymes, in the right dilution, will inadvertently kill ants, roaches, crickets, bees, wasps, flies, beetles, bees, flies, gnats, mosquitos, fleas, mites, ticks and any other creature with an exoskeleton.

It will also inadvertently kill bacteria, viruses,  mold, mildew and fungus.

If it is not your intent to harm these  creatures, please do not allow this safe product to come into contact with them.   *FDA (Food and Drug Administration) GRAS (GENERALLY REGARDED AS SAFE) LIST,  parts 184 and 186"

We can and will remove the Ginesis “warning box” from our printed material; however, I want you to be responsible if this GRAS cleaning product harms any beneficial organisms as people use the enzymes to clean.

Remember, the Ginesis warning is simply a warning; if we don’t warn people and people use it and harm beneficial organisms, it may create litigation and I want to be able to say that the warning on our new California label was specifically removed at the request of the California DPR.

3)    Your request to remove from labeling:   Any reference to a web site that advocates a pesticidal use of the product and any similar references in your advertising literature.

This appears to be overly broad.   As you may know, we can not legally and honestly control anyone’s words or thoughts or web sites and our own web site www.safe2use.com is quite extensive and contains hundreds of pages on the dangers of pesticides and lots of information on alternatives to pesticides.  Ginesis Products and/or Safe 2 Use (Jen-Par Enterprises) make no pesticidal claims ourselves but quote extensively from other sources including from a published book “The Best Control” by Stephen Tvedten who is an internationally known expert on the dangers of your “registered” poisons and who has developed many hundreds of safe and more effective alternatives to your volatile, synthetic “registered” pesticide poisons, and we also include dozens of news reports and dozens of scientific studies on the damages done by your “registered” pesticide poisons.

• Which of these types of references do you specifically consider inappropriate for the People of California to read?
• Would you also want the sale of “The Best Control” banned in California?
• What part of the truth do you want us or anyone else not to put on our web sites, labels, literature and/or say?  If you can give me specific examples of what you want censored, I will endeavor to contact all of the offending parties.

• Could you also possibly be more specific on the issue of any questionable web site references and what exactly do you find objectionable to be given out as public information in California?
• Which words or references would you specifically prefer we eliminate from our web site and/or make it impossible for the People of California to read?  (Providing the URL to specific pages would be of great assistance.)

In your letter, you also indicated a list of common cleaning products that you say are registered pesticide poisons in California including: Clorox Bleach, Pine-Sol, Tilex, Soft Scrub, Tide, Gain, Spic and Span, Comet and Mr. Clean.  If this is true, why are there no registration numbers or warnings on their labels or any notation that these products are actually registered economic poisons in California?  I believe the State of California requires that only a licensed pesticide applicator may commercially use and/or apply registered pesticide poisons.

• It is also our understanding that all pesticides registered by the EPA are also required to carry a label which details its use and cautions that “it is in violation of federal law to use this product not according to its label.”  Therefore, if these cleaning products are registered poisons, then they must be used according to their labels.  Why is there no printed notation of any of this on any of the labels of the products you say are registered pesticides?
• What have you done about the millions of individuals in cleaning services and other capacities currently using these registered pesticide poisons “illegally” in the State of California?
• Will you also require that If any of these registered pesticide poisons are being used in any manner in schools that the parents be notified of their use in accordance with any/all State, federal and/or local laws on the application of pesticides?
• If these cleaning products are truly registered pesticides, are you going to require everyone who commercially uses them (outside of their own homes) to become registered pesticide applicators?
• Are you requiring these products to be shipped as economic (pesticide) poisons in California?

• Are you really saying that Comet, Spic and Span and all these other cleaners are actually registered pesticides and, therefore, cannot be used in Los Angeles especially in their schools?
• Are you really saying to all citizens of Los Angeles that the commercial use of any of these registered pesticides is a violation of that ban?
• Are you really saying that if anyone in California uses an unregistered alternative commercially rather than your registered poisons they are breaking California law?  Are you going to arrest everyone in L.A.?

• Are you now going to ban/register apples and catnip in California as they now fit your definition of a pesticide?  Or are you only trying to enforce your regulations on me?
• When are you going to arrest/harass/ threaten and/or investigate every other Californian who uses alternatives to your dangerous, “registered” pesticide poisons that they and other California communities have banned or as organic farmers and/or environmentalists simply choose not to use?
• If the manufacturer adds or there already is an exempted active pesticide ingredient in any cleaning or cosmetic product, does that product still need to be registered as a pesticide?  You note in your letter that you and your Department also have determined Not Nice to Lice® to be a pediculicide even though it clearly states on the label it is not sold as a pediculicide.  How did you determine it is a pediculicide and not an alternative?
• How do you determine when any “alternative” actually is or becomes a pesticide or a pediculicide?
• How do you determine what is a real alternative? Or are there no legal “alternatives” in California?
• Stephen L. Tvedten also advocates Bud Light be used as an alternative product to kill rats; are you going to make Budweiser register its beer (that is sold in California) as a rodenticide?  If not, why not?
• Did you know there are cleaners on the market called WIPE-OUT (which means to kill); are they illegal too?
• Why is there no written notation on any of the product labels of these cleaners (you mentioned), that supposedly are registered pesticide poisons, that they are no longer safe cleaners but are now registered economic poisons?
• Is it not against the federal law to say that even labeled use of any registered pesticide poison is safe?  If this is true, how can any GRAS material ever be described as an unsafe poison?  Isn’t that an oxymoron?  Don’t any of the manufacturers object when you make their safe cleaners registered poisons?

We have read and reviewed your web site that purports that “you’re doing everything in your power to reduce pesticide use in the State of California.”

From your own web site you state:
 

     STATE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR AGRICULTURAL
     AND COMMERCIAL STRUCTURAL PESTICIDES

This plan is designed to reduce volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from agricultural and commercial structural pesticide applications by a maximum of 20 percent from the 1990 baseline emission inventory to the year 2005.

You apparently feel you have a good grip on what the definition of a pesticide is, as defined in your SUMMARY OF 1995 PESTICIDE USE (showing an alarming increase):
 

“The term “pesticide” is an umbrella term for substances that kill or control pests. Therefore, pesticides include insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, fungicides, and sanitizers.  A pesticide active ingredient is the chemical component of any pesticide product that kills, or otherwise controls, target pests. Included in “all other reported uses” are weed control along roads and other rights-of-way; public health applications, including mosquito abatement; vertebrate pest control; fumigation of nonfood and nonfeed materials such as lumber and furniture; pesticides used in research; and regulatory pest control of pest infestations.”

Is there no way to end this insanity? How on earth can you describe any of your actions towards us to mean “you are doing everything in your power to reduce pesticide use in California?”  It seems to me you want to make everything a pesticide or ban any/all alternative usages and/or to increase “registered” pesticide poison use in California!  Is your stated purpose true or a lie?

Your broad definition of what is a pesticide apparently catches even you in your own explanation of the alarming increase in pesticide poison applications in California; in your SUMMARY OF 1995 PESTICIDE USE you try to explain the ever increasing “registered” poison use by calling them a different name “adjuvant”:

“Included in the reported pesticides use are adjuvants, chemicals that are not considered pesticides in the traditional sense.  Adjuvants are chemicals added to pesticide formulations to increase their effectiveness. The term includes wetting agents, spreaders, stickers, emulsifiers, dispersing agents, foaming suppressants, penetrants, and buffering agents. These chemicals are not required to be registered as pesticides with the federal government. California law, however, requires that they be registered with DPR for use in this state and their use must be reported as if they were pesticides.”

I believe that you would agree that your stated purpose of the reduction (and dare we say elimination?) of the use of dangerous, volatile pesticide poisons is a goal that the State of California should strive toward.  Why are you not actually working towards this goal?

Your own “mission statement” says that you intend to “encourage the development and use of reduced- risk pest control practices,” yet you apparently are threatening us with many potential penalties because of our attempts to help you fulfill your stated mission.

It seems to us that each time you are presented with a non-toxic process, solution/product (that is a safe and effective “alternative” and/or way to substantially reduce risks) to the current use of your admittedly dangerous, “registered” pesticide poisons, your “knee jerk” reaction is to automatically say that any alternative (non-toxic) solution, especially those that actually work better and safer and more effectively to control even resistant California pests than your “registered” pesticide poisons, all magically become just another “pesticide poison” and, therefore, even these GRAS materials must be registered as pesticide poisons or, better yet, removed from the market even though they clearly are not dangerous, volatile (pesticide) poisons.

• Using your definition of what is a pesticide, how will there ever be any “legal” alternatives to dangerous pesticide poisons in California or any reduction in risk/use in California?
• Please define for me what constitutes a “legal” pesticide “alternative” in your opinion.
• Do you plan to only selectively enforce your policy of pesticide “registration”?

As stated in the EPA’s Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program Update #2:
 

On December 12, 1994 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the following press release in connection with the federal pesticide initiative announced in June 1993.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have formed a partnership with a number of groups and companies representing agricultural and non-agricultural pesticide users to promote environmental stewardship in pesticide use in the United States.

The partnership is the first under the commitment made by the three agencies before the U.S. House of Representatives in September 1993 to work jointly with pesticide user groups to develop commodity- specific initiatives toward achieving the Administration’s goal of reducing the use and risks of pesticides in the United States.

“Voluntary pollution prevention has been a cornerstone of our efforts to protect human health and the environment, and this new pesticide partnership is an important step toward that goal,” said Carol M. Browner, EPA Administrator. “I congratulate the companies and grower groups that are joining with us for their forward- thinking approach to environmentally-sound pesticide use practices and look forward to seeing others follow their lead.

“ The groups and companies that have joined the partnership include: the National Potato Council, the American Corn Growers Association, the International Apple Institute, the California Citrus Research Board, the California Pear Growers and California Pear Advisory Board, Appalachian Power, Atlantic Electric, Carolina Power & Light, Columbus Southern Power, Delmarva Power, Duke Power, Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Kingsport Power, New York State Electric & Gas, Ohio Power, Pennsylvania Electric, Pennsylvania Power and Light, Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association, the Virginia, Maryland, Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives, Wheeling Power, and Wisconsin Public Service Corp.

“Voluntary pollution prevention has been a cornerstone of our efforts to protect human health and the environment, and this new pesticide partnership is an important step toward that goal” - Carol M. Browner, EPA Administrator .

In forming this partnership, the federal government agencies and the participating groups and companies agree that environmental stewardship is an integral part of pest management practices. Specifically, the partnership has agreed to commit to a number of guiding principles that will shape pest management practices. The principles are:

• Pesticide users will continue to work towards pest management practices that reduce risk to humans and the environment and will continue to work to minimize the use of pesticides where desirable and practicable.
• The groups and companies will continue to develop and implement regional environmental stewardship plans containing specific pest management strategies that reduce risk to humans and the environment.
• In recognition of the need to maintain cost-effective pest control in the marketplace, the federal government will seek to foster, fund and promote through education, research and other means the adoption of alternative pest management technologies and practices that enhance pest management and reduce pesticide use and risk.
• The federal government shall integrate the environmental stewardship plans developed by the participating groups and companies into its agricultural and environmental policies and programs.

Many of the grower groups and utility companies have taken specific steps to demonstrate their commitment to the partnership. The grower groups have committed to more research and demonstration into Integrated Pest Management techniques and programs, the development of prediction models for more targeted and precise pesticide applications, education programs to encourage alternative pest control technologies, and cooperation with equipment manufacturers to find application techniques that maintain pest control efficacy while reducing application rates . . . . . . “I congratulate the companies and grower groups that are joining with us for their forward-thinking approach . . . . ..” - Carol M. Browner, EPA Administrator

For More Information

For more information on the PEST SMART UPDATE, contact Sherry Glick, BEAD/OPP/EPA. If you wish to write, the address is: US EPA (7501W), 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460.  The fax number is: 703-308-7026. The EPA, along with USDA and FDA, is committed to expanding the Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (the “Partnership”).

• Do you and/or does the California DPR agree with this federal pesticide initiative or not?

“DPR Offers $600,000 in Reduced-Risk Pest Management Grants

SACRAMENTO—Cal/EPA’s Department of Pesticide Regulation is accepting grant applications to support innovative pest management projects that reduce environmental and health risks, are cost effective, and  show potential for widespread use. A total of $600,000 will be awarded.

DPR Director Paul E. Helliker said the 1999-2000 Pest Management Grants will focus first on identifying alternatives to organophosphates, carbamates, and other highly toxic chemicals.  “With an increasing number of reduced-risk alternatives available — due in part to DPR’s initiatives — we want to place even more emphasis on phasing out use of high-toxicity chemicals on the farm and in urban environments,” said Helliker.

Another grant priority is worker protection. “Workers face more potentially hazardous situations involving pesticides than anyone else,” said Helliker. “Reducing pesticide risks on the job will offer immediate benefits to people and our environment.”

Other grant priorities include:

— Projects that protect surface and ground water quality;
— Alternatives to methyl bromide and other fumigants;
— Reduced-risk strategies for home and urban environments; and
— Integrated pest management (IPM) projects in schools and other public buildings. (IPM is an approach that emphasizes working with nature and minimal use of chemical controls.)

Funding is available for demonstration and applied research projects in both agricultural and nonagricultural pest control.”

• Although you utilize the word “alternative”, what is an alternative if not safe and effective products like air, catnip, apples, soap and water, hot water, Kleen Kill and Not Nice to Lice?
• Can you provide a “legal” example of any unregistered, safe, effective alternative to your current registered pesticides?

May I suggest a better definition of a pesticide as it fits into its global reality:

The term “pesticide” is an umbrella term for registered active poison ingredients that kill or control pests by means of chemical action upon the pest’s nervous system, reproductive organs, digestive system, lympahatic system or other internal biological functions. A pesticide active poison ingredient is one of chemical components of any pesticide product (along with its inerts and/or a combination of this chemical and inerts with other chemicals present in the environment or degradation thereof) that will kill, maim, sicken or otherwise control the target pest, and may also harm other beneficial life forms and higher life forms (including men, women and children, birds and animals).

The phrase “alternatives to pesticides” (or just pestisafes) is an umbrella term for non-volatile (GRAS) substances, processes or devices that can be used to repel, kill or control pests without endangering other higher life-forms.  A pestisafe also can include mechanical or organic processes that will kill, repel or otherwise control, remove and discourage target pests without degrading the environment.  Although some beneficial lower life forms may be injured in the process, higher life forms (including men, women, children, birds and animals) will not be significantly harmed or put at risk for short or long-term health effects.

Sincerely,

/S/
 

Safe 2 Use / Jen-Par Enterprises
 
 

Copy to:

Governor Gray Davis
Sen. Barbara Boxer                                         Marion Moses, M.D.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein                                     Doris Rapp, M.D.
Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante           Lynda Uvari, CCAAPP
Secretary of State Bill Jones                            Tom Alsup, Ginesis Products
Attorney General Bill Lockyer                          Stephen L. Tvedten, Get Set, Inc.
Doug Okumura                                                Jay Feldman
Lyndon Hawkins                                               Oprah Winfrey
Charles A. Andrews                                         TV Stations
Kathleen Boyle                                                 Radio Stations
All Members of California Senate                     Newspapers
All Members of California Assembly                 Others
 

Top /

(1) Our Original 6/22/99 Letter to DPR after unannounced "Investigation"
(2) DPR's 8/3/99 Response
(3) DPR's 8/11/99 follow up Letter "determination"
(4) Our 9/2/99 Response and Request for Clarification
(5) DPR's 10/8/99 response