February 5, 2021 \u2013 Today, the Clinic submitted a comment letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reverse its proposed registration decision for chlorpyrifos and revise the underlying Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA).\u00a0 The comments were submitted on behalf of the following scientific and medical experts:\u00a0 Scott Belcher, David C. Bellinger, Linda S. Birnbaum, Gemma Calamandrei, Aimin Chen, Richard A. Fenske, Philippe Grandjean, Russ Hauser, Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Bruce Lanphear, Pamela J. Lein, Axel Mie, Devon Payne-Sturges, Frederica Perera, Virginia A. Rauh, Laura Ricceri, Beate Ritz, Christina Rud\u00e9n, Robert Sapolsky, Theodore Slotkin, Elsie M. Sunderland, Charles V. Vorhees, and Robin M. Whyatt.<\/p>\n
Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphorus pesticide that has been registered for use in the United States since 1965.\u00a0 While EPA has phased out almost all residential uses of chlorpyrifos, it has remained the most broadly used organophosphate insecticide ingredient in the United States.\u00a0 Numerous scientific studies have found increasing evidence that prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos is directly correlated with significant long-term adverse neurodevelopmental impacts in children, and that these impacts persisted at least until adolescence.<\/p>\n
In 2016, EPA proposed to ban almost all remaining agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos, but the Trump administration withdrew that proposal the following year.\u00a0 The proposed registration decision and HHRA were issued in late 2020 pursuant to that reversal.<\/p>\n
The Clinic\u2019s letter calls into question EPA\u2019s decision to use 10% red blood cell acetyl cholinesterase (AChE) inhibition as the basis for the toxicological point of departure, and argues that the HHRA\u2019s refusal to rely on the findings of a key epidemiological study is irrational and contrary to EPA\u2019s longstanding commitment to rely on the best available science.<\/p>\n
Click here to read the comments:\u00a0 Comments on Proposed Interim Registration Review Decision for Chlorpyrifos and Revised Draft Human Health Risk Assessment, 85 Fed. Reg. 78,849<\/a><\/p>\n The Clinic previously submitted two amicus briefs in the 9th<\/sup> Circuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s failure to ban agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos \u2013 one brief was filed in February 2018<\/a> and the second brief was filed in December 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 5, 2021 \u2013 Today, the Clinic submitted a comment letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reverse its…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clinic-publications","category-news","post-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}