Why an 'emergency' EPA ban on a dangerous herbicide took decades
EPA asked for DCPA safety studies in 2013, and said the chemical was a likely carcinogen in 1995. This month, the EPA said it is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from markets immediately.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a rare emergency suspension on an herbicide used on broccoli and cabbage farms across the country, citing concerns that the chemical can cause damage to unborn children.
The notice marked a fairly dramatic move, at least by EPA standards.
That’s because it was the first time the agency used its emergency powers to ban an herbicide in roughly 40 years, according to the agency. And it followed what the EPA called “several years of unprecedented efforts by the Biden-Harris Administration” to force the agriculture conglomerate AMVAC — the primary manufacturer of the chemical DCPA — to fork over data on the safety of its product.
But while public health advocates have celebrated the suspension as a solid step that will yield real-world results, many also caution that the story of DCPA highlights a flawed and slow system that leaves harmful products on shelves much too long.
They say pesticide regulations rely heavily on data provided by the chemical manufacturers themselves, which ultimately leaves vulnerable populations like farmworkers exposed to toxic chemicals for years, even when third-party evidence makes it clear much earlier that there is cause for alarm.
“I think the system is really broken. There’s precautions that could generally be taken much earlier,” Alexis Temkin, a senior toxicologist at the Environmental Working Group, told Landmark.
Suspected dangerous for decades, all of a sudden an emergency
DCPA, also known as Dacthal, is an herbicide that is used to control weeds for vegetables including broccoli, cabbage and onions, but has also been used to help maintain lawns and golf courses.
The chemical, which is sprayed on crops, may not be a household name but has been used across the country since it came onto the market in the 1950s — a period when chemical insecticides became more and more common in the post-war era.
While it is marketed as having low toxicity for mammals, slight toxicity for bees and mild toxicity for some fish and aquatic organisms, a growing body of research over the years has indicated the chemical can have severely harmful impacts on humans.
The chemical is seen as particularly harmful because it lingers on crops (AMVAC says fields treated with DCPA are safe to enter 12 hours after application, the EPA says there is evidence that fields remain unsafe for 25 days), and can drift in the wind and potentially expose unsuspecting neighbors.
In fact, the EPA itself determined in 1995 that DCPA is “potentially harmful” to humans, including because it poses a potential cancer risk to children playing on lawns after treatment or a potential carcinogenic risk to people from contaminated water. The European Union banned the chemical in 2009.
Despite those concerns, the chemical stayed on the market for nearly 30 years after the EPA first said it was a possible carcinogen and 11 years after the EPA first issued a request for safety data from AMVAC in 2013.
When it finally issued its emergency suspension for the chemical on August 6, the EPA said exposure by pregnant women can yield low birth weight in their children, “impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life, some of which may be irreversible.”
“DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately,” assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff said in a statement announcing the suspension. “It’s EPA’s job to protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals.”
AMVAC voluntarily suspended the use of DCPA on turf last year, and has said that it has had “significant dialogue” with the EPA regarding the product. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
A heavy hand from industry in regulations
According to legal experts, the long delay illustrates a system that relies perhaps too heavily on the good will of corporations whose business models are built on the use of potentially toxic chemicals.
Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which gives the EPA statutory authority to regulate the chemicals, the EPA is required to evaluate pesticides every 15 years to ensure they are safe. That law also gives the agency the authority to issue what’s known as a “data call-in notice” at any time seeking more evidence if it determines that is necessary for those reviews.
The public can also petition the EPA to suspend and cancel registrations for pesticides under the law, which can lead to lawsuits if action isn’t taken.
In the case of DCPA, the EPA issued one of those call-in notices in 2013, requiring AMVAC to submit more than 20 studies, including a comprehensive study on DCPA’s impacts on thyroid development and on children both before and after birth. Several studies submitted between 2013 and 2021 were insufficient, according to the EPA, while a requested thyroid study and others were not submitted at all.
Patti Goldman, a senior attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, told Landmark that, while the EPA will review published literature that looks at the risk of chemicals, the agency tends to rely “primarily on limited animal tests done by the companies” that sell the products.
Goldman and Temkin of the Environmental Working Group said that there are plenty more chemicals out there like DCPA that would deserve a closer look and much stricter application requirements, if not outright suspensions.
More than 15 pesticides that are harmful to humans or wildlife are on the market, Goldman said. Temkin added that it is hard to quantify exactly how many chemicals should be restricted, since the chemicals may pose health risks in the aggregate, too.
Even so, the health threats of pesticides and herbicides — and recent big dollar judgments against Bayer’s Monsanto over glyphosate, the chemical in Roundup — has certainly caught the eye of the companies. In its 2023 financial filings, AMVAC noted that legal wins could pose a threat to much of the rest of the industry.
And a slew of law firms are actively seeking plaintiffs who may have been harmed by DCPA, hoping to garner the same sorts of big dollar product liability judgments or settlements that have made glyphosate a household name in its own right.
Business models directing ag chemical businesses are based on profit. Government agencies ( both state and federal) that oversee the approval and withdrawal of permits and labeling requirements impede sales and profits. Once a herbicide is approved, forces are unleashed, product is moved and sold. The entire industry “touches” the herbicide: warehouse workers, sales reps, drivers, managers and farmers.
The manufacturer has a state in the market, as do multiple companies in the distribution network.
Once a product is approved, it takes decades to withdraw. As we see here. It’s tough to turn off the profit spigot.