#dursban

“Organophosphate pesticides, such as the chlorpyrifos used widely in agriculture, on golf courses, and for mosquito control under the names Dursban and Lorsban, are neurotoxic. Prenatal exposure can lead to structural abnormalities of the brain, according to several studies. On November 6, 2018, this insecticide was approved in the United States and the EU “on the basis of a toxicity test that has now been found to be faulty,” writes Philippe Grandjean on his website, where the specific testing flaws are detailed. He adds that its residues cling to fruits and “appear in the urine of children, even those living in countries that don’t use the product.” The United States had planned to gradually eliminate its use, but the Trump administration’s EPA canceled this banishment even though, notes Grandjean, “a federal appeals court ordered the EPA to ban the pesticide due to the risks to brain development seen in studies of children.”

Washington, H. A. (2019).

A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind

. New York, NY: Little, Brown Spark.

Source 1: IndiaMart website

Source 2: Exagricola website

After reading in Alaimo’s piece about the role of Dursban, a chemical for exterminating termites, in Berkson’s A Canary’s Tale, I was curious about how Dursban works, what information is easily publicly accessible, and how the alleged “safety” for consumer use is justified. After reading the article I’m posting here, which was first published in 2000, I did some more investigating and realized that the EPA banned Dursban for home use the same year, just a few years after the publication of A Canary’s Tale (in which Berkson is assured that Dursban is a non-toxic replacement for an older carcinogenic chemical).