Time’s up for chlorpyrifos on food

Abstract

In a win for environmental and farmworker groups, a federal appeals court ruled April 29 that the US Environmental Protection Agency must, within 60 days, ban all uses of chlorpyrifos on food or establish new residue levels for the insecticide that are safe for children. The decision comes after over a decade of pressure on the agency to address the neurotoxic effects of the organophosphate pesticide on children and farmworkers. The EPA proposed banning chlorpyrifos on food in 2016 in response to a 2007 petition from environmental groups. But the agency reversed that decision in 2017 under the Trump administration. Environmental and labor groups have challenged the EPA on the issue ever since. The court’s ruling in the latest case, filed in 2019 by a coalition of groups represented by the law firm Earthjustice, could finally put an end to the yearslong debate over the safety of the pesticide, which