Chemical Pesticides

It's Time for the EPA to Ban Organophosphates

People living near fields where organophosphate pesticides are sprayed can become sick from just breathing the air.

Organophosphates are a widely used class of pesticides commonly found in our drinking water and on our produce, including leafy greens, berries, and fruits.

People living near fields where organophosphate pesticides are sprayed can become sick from just breathing the air. Workers are the most at risk from exposure on the job, plus increased contamination of their drinking water and food. The only way to protect people is to ban organophosphates as quickly as possible.

Organophosphates are acutely neurotoxic. They make people sick with symptoms like headaches, nausea, dizziness, breathing difficulties, and at very high exposures even seizures and death. Even more troubling, children are at risk of reduced IQ, autism, and attention deficit disorders at very low levels of exposure.

The EPA has a legal and moral obligation to protect farmworkers, children and communities. We are going to do everything in our power to hold them accountable.

Join us in continuing the fight by telling the EPA to ban organophosphates.

Sign the Petition

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EPA Administrator Reagan: Ban Organophosphates

Mr.

Michael

Regan

Environmental Protection Agency

Dear Administrator Regan, 

I urge you to comply with the petition and ban neurotoxic organophosphate pesticides to keep them out of our food and water and protect children, farmworkers, and communities. The EPA recently banned all food uses of chlorpyrifos, the most well-known organophosphate pesticide, but it is just one of over a dozen organophosphates used on our food. The EPA has allowed organophosphates to be used in agricultural fields, even though they are acutely toxic and cause learning disabilities and other neurodevelopmental harm to children.  

The EPA missed its October 2022 deadline to act, so it doesn't get to make any more excuses. Needless exposure to organophosphates is a policy and moral failure, and your agency is responsible for repairing this harm. I implore the EPA to live up to its public health mission and the law by banning organophosphates.