Harvard Study Shows New Food Regulations Bad For Public Health

PARK RIDGE, Ill., November 22, 1999 -- A Harvard University analysis of new federal food safety regulations shows that unintended impacts of the rules could be more harmful to public health than the compounds they attempt to regulate.

According to the Harvard analysis, the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to consider or evaluate countervailing health risks associated with the agency's regulatory implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act. For example, a ban on all organophosphate and carbamate pesticides could actually result in the premature deaths of up to 1,000 Americans annually.

The Harvard analysis "raises numerous questions regarding the EPA's attempt to limit the use of products vital to producing food for Americans," according to American Farm Bureau Federation President Dean Kleckner. Drs. George Gray and James Hammitt of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and the Harvard School of Public Health conducted the AFBF-supported analysis.

According to the Harvard analysis, food safety risks are "small or nonexistent" for the two classes of pesticides -- organophosphates and carbamates -- that EPA first targeted for review under the 1996 FQPA.

"It is impossible to link consumer exposure (from the two groups of pesticides) to any specific harm," the analysis states. "Any benefit that might come from preventing farmers from using these products will be partially or totally offset by risks induced by (their) ban."

The Harvard analysis predicts that a ban on the two pesticide classes alone would cause up to 1,000 premature deaths annually due to related decreases in disposable incomes.

Another key point identified by the analysis is the EPA's failure to consider resulting dietary changes due to higher prices for many crops. Consumption of many nutrients known to fight disease or promote health will decrease. Some minority groups who already have lower-than-recommended intake levels of many nutrients would be especially affected, according to the Harvard researchers.

The potential risks of substitute pesticides, the increased use of pest-resistant crop varieties and natural increases in plant toxins also would offset and possibly outweigh any benefits from a ban on organophosphates and carbamates, the analysis reveals.

Overall, the Harvard analysis states the EPA "is not paying enough attention to public health side effects" or countervailing risks associated with disease control, pest resistance and other factors when reassessing pesticides under the new law.

"Necessary steps to sound management of pesticide risks and benefits include development of better data on actual pesticide residues and consumer food consumption patterns, improved understanding of pesticide risks to farm workers and use of scientifically appropriate, rather than worst-case methods of risk assessment," the Harvard analysis states.

Many members of Congress agree that EPA must do a better job of carrying out the nation's food safety law, according to Kleckner. Farm Bureau is supporting two bipartisan legislative initiatives to ensure proper FQPA implementation.

In the House, the Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act of 1999 (H.R. 1592) has nearly 200 co-sponsors, and in the Senate, the Regulatory Openness and Fairness Act of 1999 (S. 1462) has nearly 30 co-sponsors.

"This legislation will force the Environmental Protection Agency to use sound science and real-world data when evaluating pesticides, instead of the guesses and estimates the agency is now using," Kleckner said. "As we can see by the Harvard analysis, a law passed to make our nation's food even safer could do just the opposite. We urge America's consumers to join America's farmers in demanding that the EPA do this job right."

To read the full report in PDF format, follow this link.

This page was last modified Fri Dec 03, 1999 at 12:00 am