The Environment Risk Management Authority New Zealand will evaluate the insecticides azinphos-methyl, endosulfan, methyl-parathion and pentachlorophenol over the next few months to determine whether there is sufficient new evidence to initiate a reassessment.
Endosulfan, an endocrine disruptor, has been linked with breast cancer the Pesticide Action Network says.
Such a reassessment could change the controls or conditions placed on an approval, or withdraw the approval altogether, said ERMA.
The Safe Food Campaign, Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa and Soil and Health Association joined this week (26 March 07) to commend ERMA's announcement that it would reassess a list of 20 pesticides, beginning with four including endosulfan.
The other three pesticides are two organophosphates (azinphos methyl and methyl-parathion), and the wood preservative pentachlorophenol (PCP).
In a joint press release, the groups said they were pleased about the reassessment of endosulfan, which is banned in at least 20 countries, but are very concerned by the delayed reassessment of some very high risk pesticides such as chlorpyrifos and 2,4-D.
"Usage of endosulfan remains high in New Zealand, in spite of research linking it to adverse health and environmental effects," said Dr Meriel Watts of the Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa.
"Apart from breast cancer, this highly toxic insecticide has been linked to hormonal disruption, mimicking oestrogen and producing infertility, as well as foetal, gene, neurological, behavioural and immune system damage at very low doses".
"We have one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world and we must do everything we can to reduce exposure to chemicals that increase the risk of breast cancer," she said.
"This pesticide has caused many deaths overseas and we want it completely banned here."
Safe Food Campaign spokesperson Alison White said chlorpyrifos and all other organophosphates also urgently needed to be banned.
Research published last year showed that three-year-old children exposed to chlorpyrifos suffered nerve and mental damage as well as increased attention deficit disorder.
"A lot of very recent research reveals disturbing damage to the prenatal brain."
Several overseas authorities, including in the USA, EU, Canada and Australia, impose stringent restrictions on chlorpyrifos and other organophosphates, she said.
"We cannot accept the ongoing risk to our children of brain damage from this insecticide."
Soil and Health Association spokesman Steffan Browning said an urgent priority for reassessment is 2,4-D, the other half of Agent Orange, which is still aerially sprayed and used a lot in New Zealand.
"It causes a lot of spraydrift complaints and needs to be banned. It has caused severe economic losses and serious health effects to a number of farmers and their families, resulting in some of them giving up farming."
Research has linked the herbicide to prenatal brain damage, breast and other cancers, and to having an effect on hormones, with continuing dioxin contamination of 2,4-D causing even further effects.
Soil & Health is calling for Government to speed up reassessments of the pesticides on its priority list and also of all pesticides available at retail outlets.
"While we are pleased ERMA is going to reassess the announced four pesticides this coming year, at this rate of reassessment, it will take at least another five years for just the 20 worst pesticides to be looked at," said Ms White.
In the meantime pesticides with known adverse effects on health and the environment would continue to be used.
"We look forward to working with ERMA to speed up reassessments by looking at groups of substances together, such as organophosphates and pesticides which are aerially sprayed," she said.
The NZ Green Party has welcomed the announcement but said the omission of other dangerous substances raised concerns.
Health spokesperson Sue Kedgley said endosulfan was a pervasive global pollutant found in everything from grass in the Himalayas to women's breast milk round the world, "not forgetting New Zealand's groundwater. It has no place in our food and it has to go."
She said the omission of methyl bromide and many other highly toxic pesticides from ERMA's reassessments was a serious problem.
Methyl bromide is a potent ozone destroying fumigant which can be used, often with inadequate controls, at over 6000 sites around New Zealand.
"It is highly toxic and yet many of these fumigation sites are in residential areas, and nearby residents are not told that fumigation is taking place. The doors of the containers are opened for the fumigant to disperse into the air."
She called the practice archaic and said it was unacceptable from both a human health and an environmental view, and an ERMA reassessment could, at the very least, tighten up on the conditions of use of Methyl Bromide.
"ERMA should be setting conditions that requires fumigation in closed systems so that the volatile gas cannot escape into the atmosphere to further damage the ozone layer."
Both methyl bromide and 2,4-D, both widely used, have been moved down the to make way for reassessment of methyl parathion and the timber treatment chemicals pentachlorophenol, neither of which are used in New Zealand anymore, she said.
"This is ludicrous when we have so many more urgent priorities for removal from the market."
The government must fund more reassessments so that all the pesticides on ERMA's list of 20, together with a number of other highly hazardous pesticides that have been omitted altogether, can be reassessed very soon, Mrs Kedgley said.
Websites:
Safe Food Campaign
Soil and Health Association
Pesticide Action Network - UK
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