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Please prioritize Safe Strawberries

Safe Strawberries now On December 1, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) let industry pressure trump science and registered methyl iodide, a strawberry pesticide that causes cancer and late-term miscarriages. With 90% of the nation's strawberries coming from California, this is a national issue.

Now is the time to send a clear message to incoming California Governor Jerry Brown. Tell him that Californians and people across the nation expect him to protect scientific integrity and public health by banning methyl iodide.

Subject: Please prioritize Safe Strawberries

Your Letter:

Dear Governor-Elect Jerry Brown,

I am writing to urge you to reverse the 11th hour registration of methyl iodide during your first month of office - as is within your power.

The scientific findings brought to light during California’s review process are clear. This chemical causes cancer, poses extremely high risks to farmworkers and pregnant women, and has the potential to contaminate our scarce groundwater resources with high levels of iodide.

Methyl iodide soil fumigation products were registered by the US EPA in 2007 despite serious concerns raised by 55 scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences, five of them Nobel Laureates. In a letter to U.S. EPA, these scientists stated, “It is astonishing then that the Office of Pesticide Programs is working to legalize broadcast releases of one of the more toxic chemicals used in manufacturing into the environment.”

This winter, the California Scientific Review Panel completed its review of California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s methyl iodide risk assessment, concluding:

“Based on the data available, we know that methyl iodide is a highly toxic chemical and we expect that any anticipated scenario for the agricultural or structural fumigation use of this agent would result in exposures to a large number of the public and thus would have a significant adverse impact on the public health.  Due to the potent toxicity of methyl iodide, its transport in and ultimate fate in the environment, adequate control of human exposure would be difficult, if not impossible. This is clearly shown in the DPR risk calculations and the evidence of the toxicity of methyl iodide upon which these conclusions are based is compelling. In addition to the evidence for significant toxicity there is a lack of information that adds further uncertainty to the evaluation of the toxicity.  We have concluded there is little doubt that the compound possesses significant toxicity.

Furthermore, this is coupled with a major lack of critical health effects data that could make the upside to all of the risk calculations even higher, as noted above. Specifically, several areas in the exposure assessment could lead to estimated margins of exposure even smaller than those presented in the report; examples include: inhalation rates, environmental temperature, emission rates, skin exposure, the assumption of the adequacy of the respirator protection factors, the hours in a workday, and potential water contamination”

This is an issue of farmworker health, children’s health and of environmental justice. The science is strong. It is time for a re-evaluation. We urge you to immediately put a stop to the registration of methyl iodide as a soil fumigant.

Governor-Elect Jerry Brown

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