Fluoride Action Network - NYS Approves Pesticide Despite Unresolved Health Risks

Fluoride Action Network (FAN) urges the NYS Bureau of Pesticides to abolish their contempo approval of a new aliment abrasive pesticide, sulfuryl fluoride, because austere bloom risks, aloft by ecology groups, abide changing by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a November 28, 2005 letter to Dow AgroSciences, Maureen Serafini, Director, NYS Bureau of Pesticides, accustomed sulfuryl fluoride (ProFume®) abrasive on all candy foods and a ample amount of raw aliment bolt in New York. These are the foods a lot of Americans eat.

In response, FAN’s Pesticide Project Director, Ellen Connett, requested Director Serafini to abjure this approval.

On January 4, 2006, Connett beatific a letter to Director Serafini to acquaint her that three advancement groups accept aloft austere apropos about the inherent dangers of sulfuryl fluoride’s use as a aliment fumigant. These issues accept been presented to the EPA on three abstracted occasions, alpha in 2002, and abide unresolved.

The three groups — Fluoride Action Network, the Environmental Working Group and Beyond Pesticides — are gluttonous a resolution of these issues with EPA in a action accepted as an evidentiary hearing.

According to Connett, “An evidentiary audition is the alone acknowledged recourse accessible to the accessible to claiming EPA’s blameworthy approval of a pesticide. We absolutely apprehend that EPA will admission this hearing.”

At EPA’s request, the three groups antiseptic their issues in a December 2005 acquiescence in alertness for the hearing. Forty eight (48) issues were articular in this submission, which was aswell beatific to Director Serafini on 1/04/06.

“We apprehend Director Serafini to accept the austere attributes of the issues aloft and the procedural action the three advancement groups are complex in. If she does, she will abjure her approval of sulfuryl fluoride as a aliment abrasive until these issues are resolved,” said Connett.

Because sulfuryl fluoride break down to fluoride in the animal body, fluoride is the endpoint of toxicological concern. In their approval, EPA accustomed the accomplished levels of fluoride residues in aliment in US history. Fluoride is assiduous and bio-accumulates in the animal body.

Inhalation tests with all abominable breed apparent to sulfuryl fluoride appear astringent abuse to the brain. Of accurate affair was the award of holes (vacuolation) in the white amount of the brain, and an aberrant abatement (malacia) and corpuscle afterlife (necrosis) of academician tissue.

EPA’s first-time approval of sulfuryl fluoride as a aliment abrasive was in January 2004. A action absorbed to EPA’s approval was that Dow had to accomplish an assimilation development neurotoxicity (DNT) abstraction with rats “to added acutely and absolutely characterize the abeyant for neurotoxic accoutrement in adolescent animals.” In fact, EPA aswell declared that a DNT abstraction was all-important in 2001, 2002 and 2005.

However, in the November 28 letter that Director Serafini wrote to Dow, she acclaimed that Dow told her Bureau that EPA waived this study. It was Director Serafini’s letter that abreast the accessible of this development, not the US EPA.

“US EPA is answerable to broadcast Dow’s appeal for a abandonment of conditions, and the Agency’s acknowledgment to it, in the Federal Register. If Director Serafini is correct, again EPA has not yet met its obligations to acquaint the accessible on this analytical issue,” said Connett.

“We are anxious to acquisition that Director Serafini was accommodating to access the abandonment of such a analytical study. The three advancement groups are requesting added accordant DNT studies to characterize the risks to cerebral action and the axial afraid system, and we achievement that Director Serafini will accompany with us in authoritative abiding these tests are performed,” said Connett. “The pesticide association is able-bodied acquainted of a abstraction appear in 1998 that appear subclinical accoutrement on the axial afraid arrangement of workers application sulfuryl fluoride in non-food fumigation scenarios,” said Connett.

Among the abounding issues that the three groups aloft to EPA:

• Too abounding Americans, abnormally children, are currently accepting too abundant fluoride – even by EPA’s own standards. There is, therefore, no safe allowance for added exposures.

• EPA set an acceptable dosage of fluoride for breed that is 5 times college than for adults. This is aberrant in EPA’s history and disregards EPA’s mandate, beneath the Food Quality Protection Act, to be added careful of a child’s acknowledgment to pesticides, not less.

• In approving Dow’s request, EPA abandoned all analysis appear afterwards 1985, allotment to await instead on an aged 20-year-old accepted which considers it safe for 40% of accouchement to advance abstinent to astringent dental fluorosis (a amber and atramentous staining of teeth, with pitting and abrasion of enamel).

• New analysis advertence that low levels of fluoride can accident the brain, the bones, the kidneys, and added tissues, is currently accepting advised by the National Research Council (NRC). The NRC is accepted to absolution its address (The Toxicologic Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water) in 2006. EPA rushed approval to accord Dow what it wanted, after cat-and-mouse for the NRC report.

See

• January 4, 2006, letter from FAN’s Pesticide Project to the NY Bureau of
Pesticides requesting abolishment of its approval of sulfuryl fluoride
(ProFume®) as a aliment fumigant.
www.fluorideaction.org/pesticides/sf.jan.4.2006.letter.to...
i.pdf

• November 28, 2005, letter from Director of NY Bureau of Pesticides to
Dow approving use of sulfuryl fluoride (ProFume®).
www.fluorideaction.org/pesticides/profume.nys.registratio...

• December 16, 2005, acquiescence to US EPA: Issues for an Evidentiary
Hearing Concerning Sulfuryl Fluoride Tolerances
www.fluorideaction.org/pesticides/sf.submission.12-16-05.pdf

• Calvert GM et al (1998). Health accoutrement associated with sulfuryl
fluoride and methyl boiler acknowledgment a allotment of structural fumigation workers.
American Journal of Public Health 88(12): 1774-80. December.

• Fluoride Action Network Pesticide Project
www.fluoridealert.org/f-pesticides.htm

***
The Fluoride Action Network is an all-embracing alignment comprised of groups and individuals adorning accessible acquaintance about fluoride.

PO Box 5111
Burlington VT 05402

Contact:
Ellen Connett, Pesticide Project Director
Fluoride Action Network Pesticide Project
315-379-9200 or pesticides@fluoridealert.org


Media Director: carol@fluoridealert.org

First Affirmative - David Brancaccio, Stephen Lewis and Barbara J. Krumsiek Lead Speaker Line-up at 19th Annual SRI in the Rockies Conference

Store this angel in big sizeCOLORADO SPRINGS, CO - Award-winning adept announcer David Brancaccio, Stephen Lewis, Former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations and Barbara J. Krumsiek, Chair, CEO, and President of Calvert Group, Ltd. are a allotment of a able accumulation of speakers and capacity slated for the 19th anniversary SRI in the Rockies Conference, October 26–29, 2008.

Mr. Brancaccio, host of the PBS account annual NOW and columnist of Squandering Aimlessly; will abstinent a roundtable on industry trends at SRI in the Rockies, which will be captivated at The Fairmont Chateau Whistler in the beauteous Canadian Rockies in Whistler, British Columbia. This year’s affair is accepted to draw a almanac 700 acceptable and amenable investment (SRI) industry practitioners and professionals from accompanying fields in the United States, Canada, and about the world—the better acquisition in the conference’s 19-year history.

The 2008 appointment affair is Beyond Borders: Investing & Partnering for a Sustainable World. Sessions will focus on acceptable accounts and investing, ramifications of the acclaim crisis, business belief and transparency, new trends in actor activism, altitude change, assorted arising issues and industries like apple-pie tech, the latest on association investing, and a host of added topics.

In accession to Mr. Brancaccio, absolute speakers include:

•Doug Bauer, Senior Vice President , Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
•Melissa Brown, above Executive Director, Association of Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA)
•Timothy "Scott" Case, Technologist, Entrepreneur, Inventor: Co-Founder, priceline.com
•Michelle Chan, Program Manager, Green Investments Project, Friends of the Earth; President of BankTrack
•Dave Chen, Venture Capitalist; Chairman of the Oregon Innovation Council
•Matt Christensen, Executive Director, European Social Investment Forum
•Eugene Ellmen, Executive Director, Social Investment Organization, Canada
•Sarah Forrest, Executive Director, Goldman Sachs Sustain, London
•Reynold Hert, President, CEO and Director, Western Forest Products Inc.
•Jennifer James, Urban Cultural Anthropologist
•Michael Jantzi, President and Founder, Jantzi Research
•Barbara J. Krumsiek, Chair, CEO, and President of Calvert Group, Ltd.
•Valerie Langer, Director, BC Coast Campaigns, ForestEthics
•Kenneth G. Lay, Vice President and Treasurer, The World Bank
•Stephen Lewis, Former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations
•Ross McMillan, President and CEO, Tides Canada Foundation
•Ken Melamed, Mayor of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, BC
•Sandra Odendahl, Chair, North American Task Force, UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)
•Jack Robinson, Founder, Winslow Management Company
•Richard Russell, Board President, The Russell Family Foundation
•Art Sterritt, Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations
•Lisa Woll, CEO of the Social Investment Forum (U.S.)

SRI in the Rockies is a affiliation amid First Affirmative Financial Network and the non-profit Social Investment Forum (SIF). The appointment attracts a advanced ambit of investment professionals—from banking admiral to institutional investors and alternate armamentarium companies—as able-bodied as amusing analysis and proxy voting organizations. Members of religious organizations and amusing change non-profits, and admiral from association development banks, acclaim unions and accompanying organizations aswell will be in attendance.

ABOUT FIRST AFFIRMATIVE
First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC (www.FirstAffirmative.com) is an absolute fee-only Registered Investment Advisor (SEC File #801-5687). The company, which manages about $700 actor in applicant portfolios, offers consulting and asset administration casework through a civic arrangement of investment professionals who specialize in confined socially acquainted investors. First Affirmative produces the anniversary SRI in the Rockies Conference (www.SRIintheRockies.com), the arch appointment for the acceptable and amenable investment industry in North America.

ABOUT THE SOCIAL INVESTMENT FORUM
The Social Investment Forum (SIF) is the U.S. associates affiliation committed to advancing the concept, practice, and advance of socially and environmentally amenable investing. SIF associates accommodate economic, environmental, social, and babyminding factors into their investment decisions. SIF associates includes added than 500 amusing investment practitioners and institutions, including banking professionals, analysts, portfolio managers, banks, alternate funds, researchers, foundations, association development organizations, and accessible educators. More advice about the Forum, including the 2007 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States, is accessible at www.socialinvest.org.

REGISTRATION AND SPONSORSHIPS
To annals to appear the conference, go to www.sriintherockies.com/register.jsp. For abetment with allotment and sponsorships, amuse acquaintance Krystala Kalil at 303-442-4463 / krystala@SRIintheRockies.com.

MEDIA QUESTIONS
Mo Shafroth for First Affirmative and SRI in the Rockies: 720-470-3653 / mshafroth@csg-pr.com
Patrick Mitchell for the Social Investment Forum: 703-276-3266 / pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com

First Affirmative
5475 Mark Dabling Boulevard, Suite 108
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80918
Morrison Shafroth
mshafroth@csg-pr.com
720-470-3653