Food, Soil, and Pest Management - Environmental Science - page 231

Crops that have been genetically altered to release
small amounts of pesticides directly to pests can help
overcome this problem. Unfortunately, they can also
promote genetic resistance to the pesticides.
Some pesticides harm wildlife. According to the
USDA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, each
year pesticides applied to cropland in the United
States wipe out about 20% of U.S. honeybee colonies
and damage another 15%. Farmers lose at least $200
million per year from the reduced pollination of vital
crops. Pesticides also kill more than 67 million birds
and 6-14 million fish, and menace one of every five en-
dangered and threatened species in the United States.
Some pesticides threaten human health. According to
the WHO and the UN Environment Programme, each
year pesticides seriously poison at least 3 million agri-
cultural workers in developing countries and at least
300,000 people in the United States. They cause
20,000-40,000 deaths (about 25 in the United States) per
year. Health officials believe the actual number of pes-
ticide-related illnesses and deaths among the world's
farm workers probably is greatly underestimated be-
cause of poor record-keeping, lack of doctors, inade-
quate reporting of illnesses, and faulty diagnoses.
According to studies by the National Academy of
Sciences, exposure to legally allowed pesticide
residues in food causes 4,000-20,000 cases of cancer
per year in the United States. Roughly half of these in-
dividuals will die prematurely. Some scientists are be-
coming increasingly concerned about possible genetic
mutations, birth defects, nervous system disorders (es-
pecially behavioral disorders), and effects on the im-
mune and endocrine systems from long-term exposure
to low levels of various pesticides. The pesticide in-
dustry disputes these claims.

What Goes Around Can
Come Around

U.S. pesticide companies make
and export to other countries pes-
ticides that have been banned or
severely restricted—or never even
approved—in the United States.
Other industrial countries also ex-
port banned and unapproved pesticides.
But what goes around can come around. In
what environmental scientists call a circle of poison,
residues of some of these banned or unapproved
chemicals exported to other countries can return to
the exporting countries on imported food. The
wind can also carry persistent pesticides such as
DDT from one country to another.
Environmentalists have urged Congress—with-
out success—to ban such exports. Supporters of the
exports argue that such sales increase economic
growth and provide jobs, and that banned pesti-
cides are exported only with the consent of the im-
porting countries. They also contend that if the
United States did not export pesticides, other coun-
tries would.
In 1998, more than 50 countries developed an
international treaty that requires exporting coun-
tries to have informed consent from importing
counties for exports of 22 pesticides and 5 indus-
trial chemicals. In 2000, more than 100 countries
developed an international agreement to ban or
phase out the use of 12 especially hazardous per-
sistent organic pollutants (POPs)—9 of them per-
sistent hydrocarbon pesticides such as DDT and
other chemically similar pesticides.

SCIENCE
SPOTLIGHT

Critical Thinking

Should U.S. companies be allowed to export pesti-
cides that have been banned, severely restricted,
or not approved for use in the United States?
Explain.

Politics: Pesticide Protection Laws
in the United States
Government regulation has banned a number of
harmful pesticides but some scientists call for
strenghtening pesticide laws.
How well the public in the United States is protected
from the harmful effects of pesticides remains a contro-
versial topic. The EPA banned or severely restricted the
use of 57 active pesticide ingredients between 1972 and
2004. The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA)
also increased public protection from pesticides.
According to studies by the National Academy of
Sciences, federal laws regulating pesticide use in the
United States are inadequate and poorly enforced by
the EPA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
and the USDA. One study by the National Academy of
Sciences found that as much as 98% of the potential
risk of developing cancer from pesticide residues on
food grown in the United States would be eliminated

if EPA standards were as strict for pre-1972 pesticides
as they are for later ones. Another problem is that
banned or unregistered pesticides may be manufac-
tured in the United States and exported to other coun-
tries (Science Spotlight, above).
The pesticide industry disputes these findings,
stating that eating food grown by using pesticides for
the past 50 years has never harmed anyone in the
United States. The industry also claims that the bene-
fits of pesticides far outweigh their disadvantages.

x

H OW W OULD Y OU V OTE ? Do the advantages of using syn-
thetic chemical pesticides outweigh their disadvantages?
Cast your vote online at http://biology.brookscole.com/miller11.