1. Pesticides & Children: Ten Years After FQPA
1996 FQPA requires EPA to:
Use an extra 10X safety factor to assure the protection of infants and children;
Assess total pesticide exposure from all non-occupational sources including through the diet, in drinking water, and as a result of residential pesticide use;
Assess effects of exposure to multiple pesticides with a common mechanism of toxicity;
Assess potential effects on the endocrine system.
The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act fundamentally changed the way EPA regulates pesticides with the protection of infants and children as the FQPA policy centerpiece. Among the major reforms of FQPA are requirements that EPA routinely address a number of new considerations in establishing tolerances for pesticide residues in food, including ,,,,,,,,,,
Many of these new provisions raise complex scientific issues, call for new types of testing policies and risk evaluation methods.
A number of questions remain unresolved and heavily debated:
What is safe for children and what is their real exposure?
Are children more at risk of harm from pesticide residue exposures?
Are children being harmed by pesticide residues?
We should be concerned about exposure of children to pesticides. BUT has FQPA resulted in healthier children or an unnecessary burden and what are the ways forward in assessing children’s health

2. Great Debate on FQPA - Healthier Children or Unnecessary Burden
Looking back
Dr. Penelope Fenner-Crisp (USEPA-Retired)
Enhanced & improved children’s health protection
Dr. James Bus (DowAgro)
Misdirected science & resources
Looking ahead
Dr. Elaine Faustman (University of Washington)
Future research to benefit children’s health protection

3. Misdirected Science and Resource
FQPA is based on flawed science
FQPA does not protect children, and may even cause harm

4. Flawed Science Foundation
Additional 10X UF is not supported by science
Toxicity is substance dependent
Common mechanism and aggregate risk unwarranted
“Common mechanisms” not “common” at real-world exposures
Mixture interactions begin around/above NOELs/LOELs of individual substances
Endocrine endpoint attention not justified
Low-dose synergism study retracted
Low-dose “inverse-U” finding not replicated
Costly “screening” tests need validation and offer no information beyond existing toxicity tests.

5. TO PROTECT CHILDREN THE ENTIRE FOOD MUST BE THE SAFEST POSSIBLE FQPA
AS APPLIED
DOES NOT PROTECT FOOD
AND DOES NOT PROTECT CHILDREN
FQPA IGNORES THE FOOD ITSELF

6. No Meaningful Protection, Possible Harm
NAS (1973, 1996): “Nutritious food is…a mixture of thousands of chemicals, any one of which [could be] harmful.
“Healthy” food fails even worse under FQPA

7. EPA NEEDS TO LOOK BOTH WAYS
NATURAL
SYNTHETIC
DON’T ASSUME IT IS A ‘GOOD’ TRUCK

8. NOT A GOOD WAY TO PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH
LOST IT HERE
LOOKING
HERE
NOT A GOOD WAY TO PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH
WHY??
SOCIAL
FUNDING
POLICY
BLIND IN
ONE EYE