Pesticide regulation in California is flawed, UCLA report says

Approximately 30 million pounds of fumigant pesticides are sprayed on valuable California crops each year—strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and the like—in an attempt to control pests. Responsibility for the safety of pesticides must be evaluated and approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation in a process known as registration.

A new report issued by UCLA's Sustainable Technology and Policy Program, a joint program of the Fielding School of Public Health and the School of Law, shows that in at least one case, the system failed by approving a chemical called methyl iodide for use on strawberries.

Methyl iodide is a neurotoxicant and is carcinogenic. It is known to cause lasting neurological damage, including psychiatric symptoms and chronic movement disorders resembling Parkinson's disease. It is also a developmental toxicant that has been shown to impair fetal development and cause fetal death at low doses.

Combined with a second fumigant, chloropicrin, methyl iodide was introduced as a substitute for methyl bromide, a widely used pesticide slated for phase-out by 2015 due to its ozone-depleting properties. While the methyl iodide–chloropicrin mixture was a promising alternative in terms of performance, it raised substantial human health issues. The Department of Pesticide Regulation approved its use in December 2010, despite opposition from scientists, environmental organizations and farmworker groups.

The UCLA report, "Risk and Decision: Evaluating Pesticide Approval in California," identifies a variety of deficits in the agency's registration process and makes recommendations to improve pesticide regulation in California.

Using the approval of methyl iodide as a case study, the authors examined the risk-governance approach used during the approval process, comparing it to best practices in regulatory settings, including risk-assessment practices developed by the National Research Council. They drew upon letters, hearing transcripts, reports, internal Department of Pesticide Regulation memos and other documents and analyzed the scientific, social and legal dimensions of pesticide registration in California.