EPA Issues Organophosphates Assessment

December 5, 2001

The Environmental Protection Agency has released a preliminary assessment of the cumulative risks of organophosphate pesticides and is seeking both scientific peer review and widespread public comment on the scientific methodologies used to develop the risk assessment. New methodologies, developed over the past five years with extensive scientific peer-review, allow EPA to evaluate potential exposures to multiple pesticides, taking into account food, drinking water and residential uses. A public comment period is open through March 8.

"Developing and applying the scientific methodologies to perform a cumulative pesticide risk assessment represent a major step forward in EPA's ability to evaluate the safety of pesticides," said Stephen L. Johnson, assistant administrator for prevention, pesticides, and toxic substances.

"Because this is the first time for EPA to apply these new methods together, we are not yet ready to draw firm conclusions about the pesticides in this initial evaluation. EPA expects, and will welcome, a robust public comment period to help us fine-tune the risk assessment. This type of analysis will add significantly to our understanding of pesticide exposure, and with these tools we will continue to ensure that the United States has the safest, most abundant food supply in the world," Johnson added.

The preliminary report examines one category of pesticides--the organophosphate insecticides--as a group because they are chemically similar and act the same way in the body. EPA has taken action to significantly reduce risk from exposure to individual organophosphates. The preliminary cumulative risk assessment considers potential exposures to 31 organophosphates through food, drinking water and residential uses. Residential uses include pesticide applications in and around homes, schools, public buildings, golf courses, parks, public health-related uses and other areas where people may come in contact with pesticide residues.

New methodologies evaluate potential exposures for different age groups and take into account the variability in potential exposure at different locations across the country and at different times of the year. EPA relied on a variety of data sources, such as monitoring data that measure pesticide residues found in food, in order to obtain the most realistic estimates of actual exposure to the population from organophosphate pesticides.

Until the agency solicits external scientific peer review and incorporates any necessary revisions, it is premature to draw conclusions about specific risks or to consider potential risk management actions, EPA said.

EPA will present the preliminary assessment during two public meetings: a technical briefing scheduled for Jan. 15, and the FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meeting on Feb. 5-8. Information on these meetings will be available at: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides and at: http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap, respectively.

The SAP is an advisory committee of independent scientific expert peer reviewers. Following consideration of comment from the public and SAP, EPA intends to issue a revised cumulative risk assessment by next August. The release of the preliminary cumulative risk assessment is an important step toward meeting the statutory goal called for in the Food Quality Protection Act of reassessing 66% of pesticide food tolerances by August.

The preliminary risk assessment documents are available at: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides. In the near future, EPA is planning to post on this web page the actual data used to conduct this assessment.