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Dow Chemical Is Told to Curtail Pesticide Sales

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 29, 2004; Page A02

The Environmental Protection Agency told Dow Chemical Co. this week it can no longer sell a controversial pesticide used to protect new homes from termites as of Friday, ending speculation that the administration might extend a phaseout deadline the two parties negotiated four years ago.

Last week, senior agency officials said they were reviewing new information Dow had supplied indicating that chlorphyrifos, sold under the trade name Dursban, meets federal exposure standards when used in home building. Some recent studies have linked Dursban to neurological and developmental damage in animals and young children, but Dow officials say these experiments are flawed. The company contends that children are protected from exposure to the pesticide by the layers of plastic and concrete that cover the ground beneath a new home.

On Monday, Debra Edwards, director of EPA's special review and reregistration division, wrote Dow that the new data are "not sufficient to allow" a deadline extension.

EPA spokesman Cynthia Bergman said yesterday that Dow provided information on the effects of the pesticide after construction is complete but that the agency wants more data on exposure throughout the process.

Each year builders apply hundreds of millions of gallons of Dursban before laying home foundations. The pesticide is also applied to crops and golf courses and used to control mosquitoes. There are no plans to cut back on these uses.

Public health advocates welcomed EPA's decision yesterday, saying it would ensure that young children are not exposed to a dangerous neurotoxin.

"It's critically important," said Katherine M. Shea, a pediatrician in Chapel Hill, N.C., who tracks Dursban. "It's just the right thing for the health of our children."

Theodore Slotkin, a pharmacology professor at Duke University Medical Center who has injected the pesticide into pregnant and newborn rats, said Dursban "is particularly dangerous" because it affects early development and victims do not exhibit immediate symptoms. "It's a sneaky bad compound," Slotkin said.

But Dow AgroSciences LLC spokesman Garry Hamlin said in an interview that Slotkin's studies "have nothing to do with how the compound is used" in practice.

Under the agreement EPA reached with Dow in 2000, the manufacturer must cease producing Dursban for home building at the end of the month, though it can ship existing stocks of the pesticide for this application until Dec. 31, 2005.

Hamlin said the company plans to stop making the pesticide for home building at the end of the month, adding he could not comment further until company officials "have had a chance to review and digest what EPA has said."

The agency may revisit the phaseout issue next year if Dow can offer additional information, according to Edwards's letter, and Hamlin said the company is likely to pursue that option.

Jay Feldman, executive director of the advocacy group Beyond Pesticides, said the fact that the administration is willing to continue talks with Dow "raises very serious questions about how the agency uses its limited resources."