After 30 Years of Health Concerns, EPA Bans Bayer's Aldicarb Pesticide

U.S. farmers use more than one billion tons of pesticides every year. In other words, picture about 125 million elephants charging through America's crop fields. Now imagine if those elephants were made of a slurry of toxic chemicals. Kind of scary to think about biting into a juicy peach now, isn't it?

The country's crops clearly suffer from an overload of chemical additives, but there's one pesticide that won't be sprayed on America's agricultural fields for much longer. Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that Bayer CropScience Institute must phase out its production of aldicarb, a pesticide currently used on potatoes, citrus crops, cotton, beans, peanuts, soybeans, sugar beets, and sweet potatoes. By December 31, 2014, aldicarb-laden veggies will be a thing of the past.

Environmentalists and public health advocates certainly have a reason to rejoice over the EPA's ruling. One less pesticide means one less toxin we need to worry about finding all over our food. But what's still concerning is just how long it took the EPA to finally outlaw aldicarb. Considering how many public health problems the chemical's caused over the past 30 years, the EPA's pace towards action was, well, glacial.

Aldicarb's nasty reputation dates back to the 1980s, when the pesticide was fingered for poisoning banana workers in Costa Rica, according to a story in the Charleston Gazette. Then in 1985, aldicarb reportedly caused America's worst known outbreak of pesticide poisoning when 2,000 people fell ill after eating watermelons illegally contaminated with aldicarb, according to Environmental Health News. In 2003, the European Union (E.U.) banned the pesticide, citing safety concerns. You'd think the U.S. would've followed suit by then, but uh-uh. In 2008, an explosion and fire at the Bayer CropScience Institute prompted a closer look at the chemical company's use of methyl isocyanate (MIC), a substance used in producing aldicarb. MIC is the same substance that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India in 1984 after the chemical leaked from a carbide plant.

As if aldicarb's illustrious reputation weren't enough to get the chemical banned from use, its known health effects even make chemists shudder. Aldicarb exposure can cause weakness, blurred vision, headaches, and nausea and paralyze the respiratory system and cause death. A new study that finally pushed the EPA over the edge indicated that American kids are exposed to up to eight times the level of aldicarb that's deemed safe.

Given its frightening history over the past 30 years, aldicarb's ban is long (and I mean loooong) overdue. And true, aldicarb's just one toxin in that billion tons of pesticides America uses every year. But if consumers continue to push the EPA and other governing bodies, we can help slowly chip away at the country's astronomical pesticide load.

Photo credit: IRRI Images via Flickr