The Rat Pack

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http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/01/01_404.html

 

The Rat Pack

 

When rat poison manufacturers complained about regulations, the EPA

rolled over.

 

By Joshua Kurlantzick

Illustration: Mark Matcho

 

January/February 2005 Issue

 

In 2003, a 46-year-old man was admitted to a U.S. hospital after

exhibiting a variety of symptoms. At first, doctors thought the man --

whose name and city were withheld in records kept by the American

Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) -- was suffering from a

kidney stone, and the hospital admitted him for observation. But the

patient's condition deteriorated rapidly. He started bleeding

internally, with massive hemorrhaging inside his skull. Just two days

after arriving at the hospital, he was dead. After his death, doctors

found in his body a high concentration of brodifacoum, a widely used

rat poison.

 

The grotesque death was not unique: Between 2001 and 2003, the AAPCC

reported nearly 60,000 cases nationwide of poisonings by rodenticides,

more than for any other pesticide. Roughly 250 of those exposures each

year resulted in serious outcomes, including deaths. And the deaths

were horrific: Rat poisons kill by anticoagulation -- they disrupt

normal clotting until blood vessels in effect explode.

 

Many of these incidents involve children because the poisons often

come in the form of pellets that are placed as bait on the floor.

" Kids will put everything into their mouths, " says Dr. Alan H.

Lockwood, a professor of neurology at the University at Buffalo and an

expert on pesticides. " These agents are very dangerous. " And they're

available over the counter to anyone. Not surprisingly, many poison

experts, national medical groups, and consumer advocacy organizations

believe rat poisons should be regulated -- with, for instance, the

most powerful poisons restricted solely to industrial users. Aaron

Colangelo, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council

(NRDC), points out that tighter regulations would most benefit poor

children. " It's a demographic issue, too, " he says. " Statistics show

[rat poison] is more of a risk for kids living below the poverty line,

because there are more rats in these communities, and public housing

managers are more careless with the poisons. "

 

Nevertheless, the Environmental Protection Agency has done little to

prevent these disasters. In fact, over the past four years the EPA has

allowed the agricultural services and products industry -- which,

according to the Center for Responsive Politics, has contributed

nearly $15 million to GOP candidates since 2000 -- to crush any chance

at regulation.

 

Once upon a time, the EPA evidently had good intentions. In the late

1990s, the agency began requiring rodenticide manufacturers to add a

bitter taste to their poisons. It also required the use of dyes, which

would stain the hands and mouths of kids, alerting their parents that

they'd gotten into something unusual. Meanwhile, the agency's career

scientists began preparing a full assessment of the dangers, which was

completed in September 2001. In keeping with standard procedure, the

report was to be made available to the pesticide industry and the

public for up to 90 days, allowing interested parties to review it.

The document, which said rat poisons were toxic to " nontarget species "

-- that is, humans and other animals -- presented strong evidence for

limiting the sale of some of the chemicals to licensed users.

 

But in a departure from normal procedures, the EPA held the comment

process open for more than a year. During this period, it allowed the

pesticide industry, organized in a coalition called the Rodenticide

Registrants Task Force (RRTF), to go well beyond making the usual

technical corrections. Documents obtained through the Freedom of

Information Act bear this out. In one, an email sent by an EPA

employee confirms that the agency went through the assessment to

ensure " no words/phrases etc that could evoke emotion on the part of

the RRTF " were included. ( " EPA career guys were being told they had to

cooperate with industry, " says one source in a wildlife organization

who has closely followed the assessment.) A second email says the EPA

replaced provocative terms with benign ones. " I am still making a few

changes, " a staffer writes, " i.e., where appropriate, the word

`poisoning' to `treated' or `dosed.' " Finally, in a longer document on

its own letterhead, the RRTF took the EPA assessment, line by line,

and crossed out words and phrases offensive to industry. And while the

EPA was meeting repeatedly with the RRTF at this time, it continually

turned down requests from environmental groups and consumer advocates

to discuss the assessment. " When we asked for meetings, we got

nothing, " says Patti Bright, vice president for pesticide programs at

the American Bird Conservancy.

 

Ultimately, in September 2004, the EPA released a revised assessment

of the rat poisons, asserting that the chemicals' effects are not

fully understood and recommending " further evaluation. " By this time,

the agency had also backed away from requiring that manufacturers add

a bitter taste and an indicator dye to rat poisons. Why? In part

because consumers would have to contend with " inevitable property

damage " from dye stains, and in part because nobody had tested the

efficacy of the ideas; testing would cost money. Plus, the EPA

worried, how would you distinguish " between stains on a child from

food products and stains from indicator dyes " ?

 

But apparently, even the weaker EPA assessment was unacceptable to the

rodenticide task force. Instead, the organization issued yet another

industry-friendly study on the effects of rat poisons. Drafts of this

new RRTF study circulated within the EPA, but environmental groups and

consumer advocates were prevented from seeing it. When Bright asked

for a copy, she was told it contained " confidential business information. "

.. What do you think?