registered for use on a particular crop, the adverse health consequences the EPA is
trying to prevent—cholinesterase inhibition and developmental neurotoxicity—will
persist.^38The ‘‘Channels-of-Trade’’ PolicyEven when the EPA negotiates a partial or total pesticide ban, it can be years
before foods containing the chemical clear store shelves. Written into the FQPA of
1996 is a ‘‘channels-of-trade’’ provision, which assures that, in the event of a ban,
producers are not immediately responsible for removing the pesticide from circula-
tion. For example, it may still be in interstate commerce by the time the revocation
or new lower tolerance level takes effect. Such a food could be found by the FDA to
contain a residue of a revoked pesticide or an amount of residue that exceeds the new
lower tolerance. The FDA would normally deem such a food to be in violation of
the law by virtue of it bearing an illegal pesticide residue. The food would be subject
to an FDA enforcement action as an ‘‘adulterated’’ food under the FFDCA. However,
the channels-of-trade provision provides an exception to such a finding by the FDA
provided that certain criteria are met.
The FDA gives firms the opportunity to demonstrate the last date that the FDA
anticipates that food made from lawfully treated commodities will remain on the
market. For certain processed foods, that is, frozen, dried, and canned foods, this date
is generally four years from the time the treated crop is harvested. It should be noted
that this opportunity is not granted under the FFDCA for food bearing pesticide resi-
dues that are not potentially subject to the channels-of-trade provision, such as when
the residue of a revoked pesticide in a food exceeds the prior tolerance for the food
or when a pesticide residue is found in a food for which no tolerance exists.^39Regulation of OP ResiduesIn agriculture, OPs such as methyl parathion and malathion are broadly effective
insecticides, killing boll weevils or fruit flies, for example. Various OPs are used on
fruit trees, vegetables, ornamental plants, cotton, corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat, and
for mosquito control. Some are acutely toxic, others much less so, but because they
exert dangerous health effects in the same way by interfering with the proper func-
tioning of the nervous system, they were the first pesticides considered as a group for
tolerance reassessment by the EPA. In 1996, 1,691 tolerances were assessed for OP
residues on crops. By August 2, 2002, the EPA had assessed 1,127 tolerances (about
67 percent), and revoked 703 OP tolerances.
Growers and pesticide manufacturers are concerned about the FQPA’s impact on
future availability of widely used OP pesticides. The EPA already has canceled methyl
parathion registrations for all fruit uses. In June 2000, the EPA and the manufacturer
of the OP chlorpyrifos (Dursban) agreed to eliminate nearly all household uses and
reduce residues on several foods regularly eaten by children. In December 2000, the
EPA announced a plan to phase out all home uses of diazinon, another widely used94 | Pesticides