Despite the fact that chlorpyrifos have been banned from consumer products and residential use in the United States for more than 15 years and multiple studies have suggested the chemicals can have a negative impact on cognitive development in children, the Environmental Protection Agency's new head, Scott Pruitt, signed an order on Wednesday that will let farmers continue to spray the pesticide on several crops, including wheat, apples, citrus, and corn.
The Obama administration recommended banning chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate originally developed to serve as a nerve agent weapon, and the Pesticide Action Network and Natural Resources Defense Council both petitioned the EPA in 2007 to ban the chemical; Pruitt denied the petition Wednesday, and said he made his decision based on "sound science." "The new administration's agency ignored their own findings that all exposures to chlorpyrifos on foods, in drinking water, and from pesticide drift into schools, homes, and playgrounds are unsafe," Kristin Schafer, policy director at Pesticide Action Network, said in a statement.
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