CPDA Urges EPA to Curtail Testing for Endocrine Disruption

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The U.S. endocrine disruption screening process is continuing with its second phase, but the crop protection industry has yet to see any value in the information generated by the process, especially considering the $1 million per chemical expense on the regulatory body.

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Similar to the EU’s pending definitions of endocrine cutoff criteria, no thresholds or limits have been defined for what an endocrine disruptor is in the U.S. Thus, it is unclear how the data, which is generated by testing on animals, will help to guide regulatory decisions.

“EPA wants this program expanded and expanded and you just see a neverending issuing of test orders for millions of dollars of testing, and EPA still hasn’t defined what an adverse endocrine effect is,” Sue Ferenc, CPDA president, said in an interview with FCI. “It hasn’t estimated the cost right and it hasn’t really made it clear how that information, that million dollars per chemical, was going to give EPA what it needed to make the regulatory decision that a chemical may or may not have the potential to interact with the endocrine system.” 

The Council of Producers and Distributors of Agrotechnology (CPDA), along with other organizations, petitioned the Executive Branch’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to quit funding for EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP).

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Previously, EPA conducted tests on a first list of chemicals, yielding few results, and EPA’s second phase is slated to test 109 chemicals. These tests cost the public millions of dollars and hundreds of animals have been killed in the process. Now, CPDA is counting on OMB oversight to bring the EDSP to a halt.

“There’s no statutory push for EPA to do it [the tests] in some certain time frame, so we’re not really sure why it’s trying to race this program forward the way it is, but you just don’t have any recourse with EPA itself,” said Ferenc. “It truly is procedural. That’s all we’ve got to go by because there’s nothing else you can do to really ask EPA.”

The procedural chess match stems from the ongoing concern that EPA tests lack practicality and are based on potential or theoretical usefulness, and according to Ferenc, the tests that EPA has been conducting have not had scientific validity.

“We hope OMB will take the opportunity to ask EPA to carefully consider its own peer review process and the experts before expanding the program, and revise the program as needed before expanding it,” said Ferenc. “That’s really our goal.”

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