Trump Health Strategy Focuses on Chemical Research, Not Rules

The White House’s health strategy report released Tuesday directs the EPA to carry out research to improve the health of children exposed to chemicals and pesticides, but it doesn’t encourage controls to limit such exposures.

“Children are exposed to an increasing number of synthetic chemicals, some of which have been linked to developmental issues and chronic disease. The current regulatory framework should be continually evaluated to ensure that chemicals and other exposures do not interact together to pose a threat to the health of our children,” said the Make Our Children Healthy Again strategy report.

The report, however, lacks timelines by which the Environmental Protection Agency would take any specific action to safeguard children.

Tuesday’s strategy report is a “very disappointing departure” from the first Make Our Children Healthy Again report the White House released in May, said Rashmi Joglekar, who focuses on children’s development at the University of California, San Francisco.

The first report mentioned specific chemicals and pesticides—along with corporate lobbying—as factors that can threaten children’s health. But those references have largely been eliminated from the strategy document, she said.

The strategy report urges federal agencies to focus on changing public opinion about the safety of pesticides, as opposed to actually implementing policies that reduce exposures to those chemicals, Joglekar said. Its omissions however, mean the report doesn’t provide a strategy to make America’s children healthy, she said.

Actions the report recommends include having the EPA work with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop information and an approach to evaluate children’s cumulative exposures to chemicals.

EPA, NIH, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), also “will complete an evaluation of the risks and exposures of microplastics and synthetics, including in common products such as textiles,” said the report from the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which was established through an executive order President Donald Trump issued in February.

Deregulatory efforts, such as easing permitting requirements for farms that release manure and other materials into water and bolstering the public’s confidence in EPA’s pesticide review process, are among more than 100 recommendations the report includes.

Pesticides

“The commission’s directive for the EPA and Big Ag to coordinate on a PR campaign aimed at convincing Americans that our pesticide regulatory process is robust is frankly insulting,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.

“The reality is that our pesticide regulatory process is as full of holes as Swiss cheese, and a slick PR campaign can’t change that,” Burd said.

The EPA should evaluate the safety of all the ingredients used in pesticides, not just the active ingredients that target pests, she said. The agency also “should immediately ban the worst pesticides, like atrazine and paraquat, that are already banned in dozens of other countries and are imperiling the health of Americans right now.”

The US uses a billion pounds of pesticides a year, and about a quarter of that total are pesticides that China, Brazil, and the EU have banned, Burd said.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin didn’t mention the domestic use of pesticides banned in other countries when he discussed the health strategy at a Tuesday press conference.

The agency is aggressively confronting and addressing the threat of domestically banned pesticides that are imported or smuggled into the US from China and elsewhere, he said.

“These are highly toxic substances that can be fatal to humans and animals and damage our environment,” Zeldin said. “It’s a top priority in line with the Make America Healthy Commission to protect Americans from this threat.”

The agency also is working to speed up the use of innovative, vetted crop protection products that can be targeted through precision technologiesthat include tdrones, computer-assisted sprays, and robotic monitoring, he said.

CropLife America, which represents companies that make pesticides, praised the administration and Make America Healthy Again Commission for listening to comments from US farmers and agriculture companies and “recognizing that pesticides are important tools that help farmers grow healthy, affordable, and abundant food for American families.”

“The commission’s strategy importantly acknowledges how EPA’s transparent, science and risk-based regulatory system is key to a safe and sustainable food supply,” CropLife America said in a statement.