On August 9, 2018, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the EPA to remove a widely used pesticide on food crops from sale in the United States within 60 days. The Court ruled EPA endangered public health by keeping chlorpyrifos on the market despite scientific evidence which indicated that even tiny levels of exposure are linked to learning disabilities in children.
In 2017, a coalition of farmworkers and environmental groups sued the EPA after it reversed a 2015 ban on the use of chlorpyrifos. This pesticide is typically sprayed on citrus fruit, apples, nuts, broccoli and other food crops including cereal crops and alfalfa (totaling 50+). It came from another one of the chemicals developed by Nazi Germany to be used as a nerve gas. [Read more…]