EPA should also closely monitor progress and insist that progress is kept on schedule. If EPA concludes that risks still are too great a couple years down the road, perhaps because of much wider use of a certain retained OP or higher than expected residues on imported foods, another round of risk mitigation measures would be imposed. As I have said before it's a huge mistake to re-open the debate over whether pesticide regulation should protect infants and pregnant women from developmental and other adverse effects. The more the public hears about this unmet challenge the more concerned people become about all pesticides. I think the industry is shooting itself in the foot by not supporting EPA's efforts to move ahead with the implementation of the Act.
Pesticide impacts on farmworkers, for example, and ecological impacts on food-webs and biodiversity.
And farmers know all too well how pesticides can trigger secondary pests that end up becoming major pests. But the reality is the American public cares most about the involuntary exposure to environmental contaminants, and has been very aggressive in demanding that they are protected to the full extent possible from pesticides in food and drinking water. It is regrettable but true that most people are not nearly as concerned about what farmers do to themselves or their families, or to their workers or their land. One accounts for differences in the size of a rat and a human being and how these different species metabolize toxic chemicals. The second 10-fold factor reflects the fact that different individuals and people at different stages in life have different susceptibilities to chemicals.