Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 31, 1990                   TAG: 9007310346
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE SYNAR and PATRICK LEAHY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PESTICIDES

These chemicals show up on food in our supermarkets because a loophole in the current law allows U.S. pesticide manufacturers to dump these banned pesticides abroad. And, according to Congressional testimony, the Food and Drug Administration waves through virtually all imported food without inspection.

This creates a "circle of poison." It must be broken. Legislation we have introduced with colleagues in both the House and Senate would ban the export of pesticides that cannot be used by farmers in this country. The Senate approved this legislation last week. Now the House must adopt it also.

But the simplicity of the solution masks the extent of the problem. Since 1983, for example, Dow Chemical U.S.A. has unsuccessfully sought the Environmental Protection Agency's approval to sell Gallant (haloxyfop-methyl) domestically. The EPA won't grant approval because it considers Gallant to be a possible human carcinogen. However, Thailand, our major foreign source of pineapples and pineapple juice, still buys Gallant from Dow for its pineapple crops.

Between 1987 and 1989, Memphis-based Velsicol made and exported nearly five million pounds of Chlordane and Heptachlor to 25 countries. Nine years earlier, EPA halted nearly all their agricultural uses because industry and independent studies had showed both chemicals to be carcinogenic.

In the last two years, federal inspectors have found residues of U.S.-banned pesticides in beef from Honduras, pineapples from the Philippines and beans and carrots from Latin America.

According to FDA data, 8 percent of imported pears had residues of illegal pesticides while no violations were found for domestically grown pears. Similar results were found for imported peas, eggplant, cabbage, peppers and carrots.

Overall, 8 percent of the imported food sampled by the FDA was contaminated with illegal pesticides, twice the rate for domestic foods. The actual violation rate may be substantially higher because the FDA routinely does not screen food for traces of scores of pesticides. Although the FDA is responsible for inspecting almost all imported food, it only samples 1 to 2 percent of the food entering this country.

American consumers aren't the sole victims of our pesticide export policy. There are also potential public health and environmental risks to the countries that receive our pesticides.

In the past 10 years, the global pesticide market doubled and U.S. exports accounted for one quarter of the world's supply, according to the General Accounting Office. But many importing countries don't have the resources or the expertise to regulate the chemicals shipped to them.

According to a United Nations survey of 115 countries, many nations, especially in the Third World, lacked the ability to assure safe pesticide practices. These unsafe practices threaten the health of farm workers who use American manufactured, highly toxic pesticides.

As exports of pesticides banned in the United States have increased, imports of foreign food products have also risen during the past decade. But as long as we allow the export of these banned pesticides, American farmers are at a competitive disadvantage. Banning their export will help put American and foreign growers on a level field.

The issue is not complicated.

If the EPA says a pesticide is unsafe for use on American-grown food, then it is unsafe for use on food grown overseas.

The solution is plain.

Close the loophole that allows U.S. chemical companies to sell overseas those pesticides that the EPA considers unsafe here at home.

We must break the circle of poison.