Pesticide risk assessments underestimate potential harm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/aiob-pra082714.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 3-Sep-2014

Contact: James Verdier
American Institute of Biological Sciences
Pesticide risk assessments seen as biased
The Environmental Protection Agency's pesticide risk assessment practices may invite bias and underestimate potential harm

In the October issue of BioScience, a group of ecotoxicologists argue that the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) current practices for evaluating pesticide safety are inadequate and likely to result in decisions biased toward industry interests.

In their article, Michelle Boone of Miami University and her colleagues note that most pesticide toxicity tests used in risk assessments are conducted by pesticide manufacturers themselves, which the authors believe can result in untenable conflicts of interest. Moreover, rigid inclusion criteria often mean that potentially relevant studies are barred from the USEPA's assessment process. The article highlights the case of atrazine, which the agency reassessed on the basis of a single manufacturer-funded study. The herbicide was ultimately deemed safe to amphibians, despite the existence of a number of studies that could have led to a different conclusion.

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