2,4-D Task Force II responds to NRDC lawsuit

The Industry Task Force II on 2,4-D Research Data is disappointed that the Natural Resources Defense Council ("NRDC") has sued EPA claiming that the agency has taken too long in responding to its November, 2008 petition to cancel 2,4-D registrations and tolerances.

2,4-D is not only among the most thoroughly tested pesticides, it is among the most thoroughly reviewed. Since 1988 the Task Force has submitted to EPA over 250 mammalian and environmental toxicology, environmental fate and residue studies.

In 2005, EPA concluded its seventeen year comprehensive review and assessment of 2,4-D. It reported in its 304 page Reregistration Eligibility Decision for 2,4-D ("RED") that the short and long-term effects of using 2,4-D were "not of concern" when users followed product label instructions.

EPA has not taken too long to respond to NRDC's Petition. NRDC's 2008 Petition to EPA and its law suit alleged that 2,4-D disrupts the human endocrine system. Yet since November, 2008, the Task Force has submitted to EPA a state-of-the-art reproduction study in rats and, in response to an October 2009 testing order of EPA, eleven endocrine assays in various organisms or equivalent information that address the very endpoint of concern to NRDC. EPA is reviewing this body of test data now. The results of the study and assays demonstrate that 2,4-D is not an endocrine disruptor.

Finally, to address FIFRA's requirement that EPA periodically and systematically review the safety of pesticides every fifteen years, EPA, even though it completed its comprehensive safety assessment of 2,4-D in 2005, will start another updated review of 2,4-D, approximately 12 months from now, March, 2013.

In summary, 2,4-D continues to meet FIFRA's standards for registration. Registrants are conducting and EPA is assessing state-of-the-art studies to address the very questions raised in NRDC's November, 2008 Petition. EPA will start a public and transparent review of 2,4-D within the next 12 months.

Comments (4) Leave a comment 

Just to make sure we're all on the same page: Since 1988, (as you note), the EPA and FDA product review boards have been staffed by short-term contract employees from the very companies whose products they reviewed. The percentage of approval: 99.7%
2,4-d is one of the most toxic compounds man has ever invented. Dose makes the difference. It is 1/2 of Agent Orange and banned in virtually every 1st world nation except those in North America where Dow and others have spent tens of millions in payola to politicians to make billions at the expense of the health and welfare of the people.
Not only should it be banned; those that have passed it in multiple reviews should be imprisoned for manslaughter.
The list of impact from 2,4-d includes cancer, gender-bending and heart attack episodes.
Just so we are on the same page....

DR R, just so we're on the same page, 3 tablespoons of table salt can kill many adults. Also have you read the warning labels on acetaminophen, ibuprofen etc.. Additionally it was determined that the "bad" substance in Agent Orange was Dioxin, not 2,45-T.