One Less Chemical to Worry About: Goodbye, Endosulfan

I say it all the time: “Read ingredient lists.”

Unfortunately, this can only help so much when food shopping, since pesticides will never be named.

But there will be one less chemical to worry about in the United States, thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ban of endosulfan earlier this week. (Endosulfan has already been banned in dozens of countries, including the entire European Union.)

According to the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), which played a leading role in achieving the ban, endolsulfan’s demise will:

• Protect farm workers and rural communities in Florida and California where the chemical is used to grow tomatoes and cotton.
• Protect Indigenous communities in the Arctic, whose traditional foods are contaminated with endosulfan and its by-products.
• Reduce risk for all Americans, since Center for Disease Control studies found endosulfan and its breakdown products in the blood of American men, women and children.

Click here to read the EPA’s endosulfan ban announcement.

Click here to read PAN’s endosulfan ban press release.

Click here to read the Natural Resources Defense Council’s endosulfan fact sheet.