PAN – Menupause

NOTE: I removed the photo because I could not make it small enough to fir correctly. es

In a final gift to the pesticide industry, the departing administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to approve continued use of paraquat, the most deadly herbicide used in this country today.

Paraquat is manufactured by the pesticide giant Syngenta, and has already been banned in many countries around the world — including the European Union, China and Brazil — due to its incredibly high toxicity.

Tell EPA it’s time to ban this dangerous herbicide in the U.S. as well. The public comment period is open now, sign onto our petition today!

This isn’t just a problem of acute (short-term) toxicity. Scientific studies link chronic paraquat exposure with increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease — and it’s a suspected endocrine disrupting chemical as well.

Yet paraquat use in the U.S. is higher now than it has been in the past 25 years, and continues to rise.

EPA itself found serious risks to farmers and farm workers who are exposed to high levels of paraquat on the job, as well as considerable harms to mammals, birds and pollinators that forage near treated fields. The measures the agency proposes to address these concerns are completely inadequate.

Sign onto our petition today to block this parting gift to Syngenta, and urge EPA to do its job — and ban paraquat immediately.

Thank you for taking a stand against this blatant failure to protect public health and the environment!

Pesticide Action Network North America
Berkeley, CA | Minneapolis, MN
510.788.9020 | community@panna.org | www.panna.org
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P.S. Thanx to my friend Honey who sent me this petition

My Note: My friend Honey sent me this petition from PAN (Pesticide Action Network) and it is really a sometimes forgotten issue, that is, pesticide drift. Read more below and sign if you agree!

The message will bleed slightly over the right hand margin. Cannot move it over any further. Sorry!

Feel free to just click on Take Action to sign the petition.

Public comment closes January 30. Take action today.

Dear Environmentalist:

Farm workers are already some of the least protected workers in the country. And EPA is proposing to weaken an existing rule protecting farm workers and their communities from pesticide spray drift — the application exclusion zone, or AEZ — a provision in the Worker Protection Standard.

Tell EPA we should be strengthening rules that protect farmworkers from pesticide spray drift, not dismantling them.

Currently, the AEZ establishes a “protection zone” around pesticide application equipment — no one can be within a certain radius during pesticide application. It’s a sensible rule that was supported by EPA’s own scientists.

EPA’s proposal guts these existing protections. If implemented, these changes would remove protection for people not within the specific property being sprayed, even if they are within the designated radius of a “protection zone”.

Further, this protection zone would be eliminated entirely or reduced in size by more than 90% for certain common pesticide application methods — a dangerous rollback of common sense rules.

Tell EPA to do its job and protect farmworkers and their communities from pesticide spray drift. Public comment closes January 30 — take action today!

Thanks for all you do.

Pesticide Action Network North America
Berkeley, CA | Minneapolis, MN
510.788.9020 | community@panna.org | www.panna.org

Tag: PAN

PAN Petition to Ban Paraquat (a deadly pesticide)

Pesticide Petition from PAN