WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration Thursday announced that it will ban all over-the-counter sales and most nonagricultural uses of Dursban, one of the most common household and garden pesticides, but its chief manufacturer insisted that the chemical is safe and vowed to continue selling it overseas.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced the agreement with Dow AgroSciences and other manufacturers to remove the chemical, also known as chlorpyrifos and sold under another trade name, Lorsban. The chemical is used in more than 800 brands of bug-killing sprays, pet collars, and lawn and household products.
EPA Administrator Carol Browner said that the agreement allows products containing the chemical--such as Ortho Lawn Insect Spray, Real Kill Wasp & Hornet Killer II and Spectracide Dursban Indoor & Outdoor Insect Control--to remain on retail shelves until the end of 2001 but orders production halted by the end of this year.
"We are turning off the manufacture of this chemical . . . for garden and home uses," Browner said.
The agreement curtails use of the chemical by commercial firms and agribusinesses. Tight restrictions will be imposed on the pesticide's use on some agricultural products, specifically apples and grapes, and it will be banned for use on tomatoes. The restrictions are designed to eliminate the chemical's residue on foods often eaten by children. The pesticide still will be available for use on many grains and other crops.
Browner said EPA studies found that the chemical led to brain damage in fetal rats whose mothers were fed the chemical, suggesting that it might pose a serious threat to the nervous systems and brain development of children.
Environmental Groups Praise Decision
Those findings are disputed by Dow officials, who had fought to continue selling the chemical in the United States. But environmental groups praised the EPA decision.
"We think this is a very big and important step in the right direction," said Jacqueline Hamilton, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group.
The ban represents the EPA's most significant and wide-ranging action since Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act, a 1996 law that ordered the agency to review the potential health effects of so-called food-class chemicals on children.
