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Bill Moyers reports on U.S. Government failures to certify the safety of agricultural chemicals and why the pesticide industry is the only source of safety data.

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00:00Frontline is a presentation of the Documentary Consortium.
00:07Tonight on Frontline, pesticides and children with correspondent Bill Moyer.
00:12So what should parents of young children do?
00:15Not feed them fruits and vegetables?
00:17We truly don't know what the long-term health effects are of these chemicals in children.
00:22What if seven, ten years from now, Wyeth is back in the hospital and they find a direct link?
00:29What am I going to tell them? That the peaches were more important?
00:33Tonight on Frontline, in our children's food.
00:46With funding provided by the financial support of viewers like you
00:52and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:55This is Frontline.
01:07Additional funding for this program is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
01:12a catalyst for change.
01:25The only word to describe it is war.
01:30A war that has been waged on American soil for more than 40 years.
01:34The longest chemical war in history.
01:43And this is the enemy.
01:45The countless billions of agricultural pests that feed on America's food supply.
01:50In the past quarter century alone, farmers have dumped over 5 billion pounds of insecticide onto their crops.
02:04More than 11 billion pounds of herbicide into the soil.
02:09Almost 2 billion pounds of fungicides in an escalating war to ensure good harvests.
02:15Like any war, civilians caught in the middle are the first casualties.
02:34I was a farm worker.
02:37Working on the soil, as I was turning it over, I started with bleeding fingers, skin rashes, the dizziness.
02:47My mother was a farm worker.
02:51She just was told it would go away on her skin rashes.
02:56She started turning yellow and she died of cancer.
02:58It was diagnosed too late.
03:00There is no longer any scientific question that agricultural poisons pose health risks to farm workers.
03:08What we don't know are the long-term chronic effects of pesticide exposure on the general population, and in particular, on children.
03:21These children attend the Browning Road Elementary School in McFarland, California, in the heart of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
03:31Next door, this typical suburban development.
03:38Marta Salinas used to live here.
03:40It was built especially for farm workers.
03:43For farm workers, low income, an opportunity of the American dream.
03:48What's it turned into?
03:50A nightmare, a death trap.
03:52Wherever you go, your life is a time bomb.
03:54This development was built near what had once been a pesticide dump.
04:01It is surrounded by cotton fields regularly sprayed by airplane.
04:07The drinking water has a long history of contamination by pesticide residues.
04:13We're being exposed by directly over and over and over again.
04:18It's a sort of a worst-case scenario for pesticides, isn't it?
04:22Yes.
04:24And we are the perfect example for America to see.
04:27What Marta saw happening was a neighborhood health epidemic.
04:33Two years after she moved in the house, she started with brain lesions and seizures.
04:40She's had two surgeries, then the next door...
04:43Everywhere she turned, Marta saw neighbors and their children suffering from illness.
04:47And deformity.
04:50Then we've got another neighbor here with a little girl who had kidney bladder problems,
04:55had urine tract open a couple of times, premature gray hair, the chronic diarrheas.
05:00Then we have this neighbor with a chronic diarrhea, the skin rashes, the hair loss, fevers.
05:06She's had surgery a couple of times.
05:09Is there anyone on this street who hasn't had a problem?
05:11No. Everybody's been sick in this neighborhood.
05:13One of Marta's daughters started losing her hair.
05:18Another had chronic skin rashes.
05:21The family moved out two years ago and the symptoms disappeared.
05:26No one, it seemed to Marta, was paying attention.
05:29So she returns regularly to her old neighborhood to document the trail of disease in McFarland.
05:34The red is for the cancers, the purple is for the tumors, the blue is the birth defects, the miscarriages is for the black.
05:44And it's just common sense that we have to think that if us in this neighborhood, any farm worker is dying, being exposed directly,
05:52what makes you think or anybody out there think that it's not going to happen to them.
05:59They're eating this food, this contaminated food in slow dosage.
06:03I got it!
06:05Marta Salinas' community came to be known as the McFarland Childhood Cancer Cluster.
06:09Five years ago, one study suggested pesticide exposure was probably a factor.
06:17But right now, there is no local, state or federal agency even studying the question.
06:22So, were pesticides the cause of all that disease among the children of McFarland?
06:27We really don't know.
06:31What we do know is that pesticide exposure is not just an issue for farm workers and their children.
06:37Because there are minute traces of pesticides in the food we all eat every day.
06:43Some of it is what's called systemic, which means you can't wash it off, it's part of our produce.
06:50Does this exposure to agricultural chemicals threaten our health?
06:53And what about the most vulnerable among us, our children?
06:59Those are the questions we set out to explore in this broadcast.
07:03Questions that concern all of us, but especially parents.
07:10You got some good arms, son.
07:12Farmer Paul Buxman never thought much about agricultural chemicals
07:18until his son Wyeth was diagnosed with leukemia over ten years ago.
07:23Today, he worries about pesticides.
07:26A recent National Cancer Institute study found that if you live on a farm,
07:31you have a far greater chance of getting some forms of cancer.
07:36I didn't want to just jump to the conclusion, oh yes, farm chemicals is what it is.
07:41Because after all, that was what was helping me produce.
07:43But I do remember, kind of coming to this conclusion, what if I don't stop using a lot of this material,
07:53and I'll go ahead and tell Wyeth, Wyeth we don't know for sure, I'm going to continue to use this stuff.
07:58What if seven, ten years from now, Wyeth is back in the hospital and they find a direct link?
08:04What am I going to tell him? That the peaches were more important? That I was willing to take a risk?
08:10Even when I took over the home place, Dad didn't know what those chemicals were.
08:14I made a list when I came and took over the home place and said, Dad, what are these?
08:17I don't know, you'll have to call the guy up. I'm not sure what they're used for, but they told me it's for something.
08:22Some of them were definitely category one heavy hitting pesticides.
08:29They would kill basically anything in the field, including you, if you were out there.
08:35And in some ways, we've kind of gone from farms to pharmacies.
08:39You know, it's like a dispensary. We're kind of dispensaries out here.
08:44The unhealthier the farm, the more we need their medicine.
08:48And how well it works out that the man recommending what you need, the doctor, in this case, is the man selling you the medicine.
08:56This is this incredible conflict of interest that we've lived with here for 30 years.
09:08Thirty years ago, the public thought little about the health effects of pesticides.
09:12They were man's miracle drugs, ridding the farmer of pests and neighborhoods of mosquitoes.
09:24They were good for fruits and good for steers.
09:28In fact, everyone seemed to agree, DDT is good for me.
09:33Everyone, that is, but a respected biologist named Rachel Carson.
09:40She began to notice wildlife disappearing.
09:43And in her book, Silent Spring, Carson was the first to raise questions about the long-term effects of agricultural poisons on humans.
09:52We have to remember that children born today are exposed to these chemicals from birth, perhaps even before birth.
10:02Now, what is going to happen to them in adult life as a result of that exposure?
10:08We simply don't know.
10:09Back then, pesticides were registered by the Department of Agriculture based on their ability to kill pests, not on their potential health effects, as Agricultural Secretary Orville Freeman readily admitted to CBS News reporter Jay McMullen.
10:28During the past years, do you think that the public was sufficiently appraised of the potential hazards of pesticides?
10:35The answer I could say very quickly is no.
10:37And yet the official government position on pesticides was nothing but reassuring.
10:43There is no evidence that the small doses of pesticides that we do get are causing any harm.
10:51The only effect that can be measured objectively is the storage of one of them, DDT, in the tissues of most people.
11:01This storage has not caused any injury that we can detect.
11:08Science would, in time, catch up with some of these toxic chemicals.
11:13DDT would be banned ten years later, just as Rachel Carson had predicted.
11:20Unless we do bring these chemicals under better control, we are certainly headed for disaster.
11:25The first generation of children exposed to pesticide residues are now adults.
11:40These are the children of the second generation.
11:43Anybody else have yellow?
11:44Only now, pesticide use on food crops has increased more than 150%.
11:51More juice, please!
11:53Okay, just a minute.
11:55Many child specialists are growing concerned that legal pesticide residues, what are called tolerances, have been set for adults.
12:02On some foods, those legal residues may be too high for children.
12:09It's very hard to prove that any child has ever become ill from these chemicals.
12:14Imagine that you're the pediatrician and a child comes into the office and she's got a little tearing, a little diarrhea, a little nausea, maybe a little jitteriness.
12:22Who would think to make the diagnosis of a pesticide poisoning? It's a very difficult diagnosis to make.
12:29So saying that there's no proof that it's occurring in humans doesn't mean that the safety margins are acceptable and that the system is rational.
12:36We're finding that risk is very much front-loaded.
12:40If you're going to be exposed to sort of the same pattern of pesticide residues in the food you eat,
12:46you're going to experience the vast majority of your cancer risk by the time you're 10.
12:54Charles Benbrook was the director of the Board of Agriculture at the National Academy of Sciences for seven years.
13:01The NAS was commissioned by Congress to examine whether the pesticide residues legally permitted on food were safe for children.
13:10Benbrook was put in charge of the study, Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children, in July 1988.
13:20The study was due more than two years ago.
13:24All EPA regulation, all tolerance levels are based on average adults.
13:30The diet of average adults that assumes that each person eats a tiny portion of 373 different foods each day.
13:42Imagine the entire U.S. food supply for a year.
13:46You dump it all in a giant mix-master, turn it on, blend, and then every day you eat three meals of this mush that's a little bit of everything.
13:55That is, in effect, the scientific basis of tolerance setting. And that's absurd.
14:02Tolerances are not set on a health basis. If they're set on a health basis, there'd be much lower numbers and much fewer chemicals used on many fewer crops.
14:11So the tolerances collectively, cumulatively, are set too high?
14:16If you sit down and you add up what any citizen, but particularly a child, would likely eat, and you add up what the government permits in that food, you find out that the government is permitting 100, 500 times as much chemical in the food as a health-based number would dictate.
14:35What exactly do we know about the dangers of pesticides in our food?
14:45The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, is responsible for making sure that 20,000 agricultural products legally registered for use on food crops are safe.
14:55This is one of their labs. Only this lab is not even capable of testing the safety of pesticides. All of the tests to prove these chemicals are not hazardous to humans are done by the companies that make them.
15:10Can the American people trust the data that comes from an industry that has millions of dollars at stake in the product it's trying to sell?
15:21I think that our industry is trustworthy. It has earned the trust. It has the track record of performance and support to the American farmer with very effective products that have allowed the American farmer to provide us with the most abundant and safest food supply in the world.
15:40But on top of that, we invite the public and you to give us a tough look, a close examination, and watch us carefully because we understand that the public has a right to ask tough questions and we have an obligation to provide the answers.
15:58This is where the answers pile up. The mail room at the EPA's Office of Pesticide Program.
16:09Here's some work.
16:11Data from chemical companies pours in literally by the ton.
16:14Toxicology reports. Animal test data. Cancer study. Every day, an avalanche of paper descends on the EPA.
16:29We've got some more submissions for you.
16:30Great.
16:31A single toxicology study for a single chemical can fill a dozen volumes and take several years to produce.
16:40Get some work.
16:43On any given day, the biggest job around here is making sure the studies are logged in and that everyone gets the right pot.
16:50Here you go.
16:53Have a good day.
16:54Incredibly, one out of every three studies industry submits is rejected by the EPA and has to be done again.
17:02The end result, the paper keeps piling up and piling up.
17:07Even as certain pesticides EPA suspects of causing cancer continue to be used on food crops.
17:16They've just become completely bogged down in non-decision making.
17:19It's one piece of paper after another.
17:21Let's ask for another study.
17:23The industry plays right along with that.
17:25That's their game.
17:26They say, yes, we'll give you another study, but it'll take us three years to do it.
17:30And the chemical can then stay on the market?
17:31And then the chemical stays on the market during all this time, even if EPA has serious doubts about it.
17:36Because they haven't got the procedures in place and the will to take it off the market.
17:42The procedures EPA follows are decided on Capitol Hill at meetings like this.
17:49I'm going to ask that you either destroy this paper or eat it.
17:55Burn it before you leave here because I don't want this to get out and be interpreted to be the agenda.
18:02There is no agenda right now. Let everybody understand that.
18:06The law regulating pesticides is known in Congress as the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodinicide Act, FIFRA for short.
18:16Could we continue to try to work on where we left off in July or August in terms of trying to finish up those discussions?
18:24Rounding the corners.
18:25This meeting in the House Agricultural Committee involves staffers from Congress, the EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, some environmentalists, as well as interested members of industry.
18:41Ed Rucker, McDermott, Will and Emory, representing the Miner Crop Farmer Alliance.
18:45John and Gary with the National Food Processors Association.
18:49Twenty-one years ago, in 1972, Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to test all pesticides then on the market for potential health hazards.
19:00The job was supposed to take five years. The current deadline is 25 years later, 1997.
19:07Although EPA acknowledges that they're probably not going to meet those deadlines, is that fair to say, guys?
19:14Yes?
19:15Yes.
19:16Okay. I just want to make sure.
19:18This is what the law required. Congress ordered EPA to make sure the 620 pesticide chemicals then on the market were safe.
19:30So far, EPA has approved the health safety data for only 19. That's just 3%. One reason that program failed is political.
19:44I think that the reason that those programs were abandoned is that, first off, during the Reagan administration, they were advocating a position of pulling government out of certain areas.
20:00We had become, I suspect, a nuisance to industry, perhaps a thorn in their side, because we were creating and identifying more problems, perhaps, than we were solving.
20:14Hale Vandermeer is an epidemiologist who worked at the EPA for 16 years.
20:18We had created a network of pesticide laboratories that were there with the capability to do all kinds of chemistry to identify pesticide residues in all sorts of human and biological substrate.
20:39We destroyed that capability. We destroyed that critical mass that we developed from 1965 to 1980.
20:48This is one of only two EPA pesticide laboratories out of 13 to survive the Reagan revolution.
20:59Neither is capable of even verifying the pesticide studies that industry submits.
21:05When you rely on the fox to provide all of the information and you have no way of checking on it, then you have to rely on his integrity to do so.
21:16I have seen industries report things that were damaging to them, ultimately, yes.
21:23I have no sense whatsoever, nor do I have confidence that they do this with any regularity.
21:30What does that say to you?
21:32Well, it says to me that we have probably created a bad law.
21:36The law ended up creating a bill of rights for older pesticides.
21:47It allowed chemicals in use before 1972 to remain on the market until EPA proves, conclusively, they are dangerous.
22:00These workers will continue to be exposed to them, even though EPA may already have serious doubts about their safety.
22:07Take carrots, for example. Federal law permits the residues of 40 pesticides in carrots. EPA now believes eight may be cancer agents.
22:22All of them were registered for once. All of them were registered for use before 1972.
22:27And under the law, these old chemicals have special rights.
22:31Captan, for example, is a fungicide first registered in 1951.
22:41Animal studies have indicated it causes cancer, birth defects, and genetic disorders.
22:48Twelve years ago, EPA began the process of cancelling captan.
22:52Yet captan can still be used on 74 food crops, including grapes.
22:59Its maker, ICI Americus, wouldn't talk to Frontline.
23:04And the EPA is bound by law.
23:07If you've got an older pesticide that's already on the market, it's got the right to stay on the market until EPA can prove that risks exceed benefits.
23:15And that's very scientifically difficult often. And also, legally, the burden of proof on EPA is a very heavy one.
23:25Anything from USDA yet?
23:27Well, USDA, we have one report that was dated, I think, 8045. It was a draft report.
23:34But right now, it's the best data that we have, and it's the data that we have to go on.
23:37These EPA economists are conducting a risk-benefit analysis of a so-called suspect chemical with valuable food crop uses.
23:47Since California's impacted and is a major producer of carrots, their dependency on the subject of the suspect chemical is a major concern at this point.
23:59The law won't permit EPA to just ban a chemical that has major economic benefits.
24:04If it tries, the appeals process could take years or even decades.
24:09I'm comfortable with everything other than carrots.
24:12These discussions have the difficult task of weighing the risks to the public health against the economic impact on everyone from farmers to supermarkets to consumers.
24:23Yeah, I think we should be definitely keeping in mind that different regulatory options other than just cancellation.
24:28The chemical industry was able to get provisions put into law that gives them many, many bites at the apple.
24:36They get opportunities at the EPA to stop and slow down the process.
24:41They get additional administrative hearings.
24:43And then finally, if they go to court, the process starts all over again as if the agency had never done anything or spent years studying a chemical.
24:49So this just maintains the status quo?
24:52And the result is nothing gets done.
24:55Frontline requested interviews with the chief executives of the leading companies still producing and selling old chemicals.
25:03We wanted to ask why none had satisfied the requirements of re-registration after 20 years.
25:09All of them declined.
25:10And all referred us to their Washington lobbyist, Jay Varun.
25:15But we wanted to talk about specific products those companies have been making for a number of years.
25:21You don't make products.
25:23No, that's correct.
25:24And you can't talk about them.
25:26No, I am not in a position to speak to individual product questions.
25:34It's kind of a catch-22 situation for a journalist trying to find out.
25:38Well, why don't we talk to them together?
25:41You think you might give them the courage to talk to us?
25:43Well, I don't know, but I'll try.
25:45Or the openness to talk to us?
25:46Yeah, sure.
25:48As it turned out, they weren't.
25:50We asked Mr. Varun to help arrange an interview with any of four leading companies still selling old chemicals.
25:57None would agree to an own-camera interview with Frontline.
26:00If they don't want to talk about it, can the public trust these companies that are producing these products that go on the food I eat?
26:09In fact, industry's own tests suggest that 65 pesticides now in use may cause cancer.
26:22But EPA can't just ban them until the link is conclusively proven.
26:27So their residues remain part of our daily food supply.
26:30But even those tolerances are set for adults.
26:36The National Academy of Sciences' study on the effects of pesticides was exploring whether the legal residues on food are set too high for infants and children.
26:46The committee began to amass some shocking data, according to its original director, Charles Vindbrook.
26:54The people that have worked on the Academy Committee and other experts in this field have come to learn that there are some big holes in our safety net
27:04when it comes to assuring that the levels of pesticides that the government says are safe and are legal and are sanctioned to be in the food supply.
27:17In many instances, those levels are not safe for children.
27:22What you're saying is that the NAS study found that for those vulnerable populations of children that the risk has been too high in some cases.
27:32Yes, the report will undoubtedly find that to be the case.
27:37Charles Vindbrook was fired by the NAS one month after the study's initial deadline.
27:43It was like a classic risk-benefit decision. I became more of a pain than I was worth to the Academy.
27:52The agricultural community likes to call for good science and regulation, but it really doesn't want too much good science, particularly when it cuts the wrong way.
28:06Well, okay, let's cut to the chase here. What about this pesticides and the diets of infants and children?
28:14Susan Offit is an agricultural economist. Last year she moved from the Office of Management and Budget to head up the NAS children's study begun by Charles Vindbrook.
28:24Let me say that I am fully aware of the concerns that you have about the study's conclusions and recommendations. We make it a point to try to understand the concerns of the affected constituents and being able to come to talk to you this morning and keeping in touch with your membership is a good way for us to do that. It matters to us.
28:43The affected constituent Ms. Offit was addressing this day was the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, and she told them something they wanted to hear.
28:55This is a study about the methodology of risk assessment. It is not a risk assessment itself, and it was never intended to be.
29:02The responsibility for making judgments about acceptable residue levels of individual chemicals on foods rests with the EPA. It is not within the purview of the committee.
29:13What she is saying is that the five-year-long study is not likely to provide any real answers about pesticide risks to children. It's not required to conclude if there is any risk, or even propose that legal pesticide residues on certain foods may be too high.
29:31The outcome of a risk assessment is a decision about a risk, the management of a risk. And the committee is not overtaking, is not going to perform that function for the federal government. It's going to advise the government on how those decisions should be made.
29:46But the committee's deliberation has been of intense interest to the industry for five years.
29:52Who is Don Collins?
29:54Donald Collins is our director of food safety here for NACA.
29:59What's the director of food safety? What's his job?
30:01His job is public communications, public relations.
30:08This memo obtained by Frontline shows that Don Collins and his Food Safety Task Force kept a close eye on the NAS children's study.
30:17In it, he warns of what he calls the kiddies report, that a leak was still possible, but that there was no public pressure for release.
30:28The memo suggests regular contact with Richard Thomas, the first person to replace Charles Benbrook as head of the NAS children's study.
30:37It identifies Thomas as someone formerly working on industry concerns.
30:43To Jay Varoum, keeping track of potentially damaging studies is one thing his association is supposed to do.
30:50Then we would be remiss, and so would our critics, if they aren't doing the same thing.
30:54But it has nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do, with influencing the National Academy of Sciences or this report.
31:03But a draft of the report written last fall under Susan Offit got some committee members hopping mad.
31:09Frontline obtained this letter from the study's chairman, Dr. Philip Landrigan, a renowned pediatric toxicologist.
31:17He implied that her report was watered down.
31:20He charged that somehow the report had regressed and lost substance, that case studies had been blurred,
31:27that the work of the committee had been diluted and delayed by forces acting within the depths of the academy.
31:35Did he tell you what he meant when he wrote in his letter that changes from other sources seem only to blur and confuse the report?
31:42Did you all discuss that?
31:43No, we did not.
31:44Having spoken with Dr. Landrigan about his concerns, he has told me that he is completely reassured about the course the study is taking.
31:53Whatever he meant by that letter was not the subject of our meeting, quite frankly.
31:58Weren't you curious about why he would write a letter like this?
32:02As I said, I've learned not to speculate on other people's motives.
32:06After my interview with Susan Offit, Dr. Landrigan wrote to Frontline to say that the committee has now re-established control over the children's study.
32:15His letter says that the current draft is the best the committee has produced so far.
32:20I mean, is there any way to know when we will be able to answer the question raised by the report in the first place?
32:27What's the impact on infants and children of pesticide residue in their diet?
32:33First, we have to see what the committee says.
32:35What do they recommend actually be done?
32:37Then the question is, if they make a recommendation for a change in practice or a change in decision-making,
32:42is that something that the executive branch can do on its own?
32:45Then the question is, if they have the ability, the legal ability to do that, will they do it?
32:50That's got as much to do with politics as it does with science.
32:55The other issue that can arise is based on what the committee actually says is,
32:59is there legislation, does the law of the land have to be changed in order for the recommendations to be implemented?
33:06Then you've got the Congress and everybody, you know, with a dime to put on the table as part of the debate.
33:12It might require amending the statute. How long would that take?
33:17It hasn't been amended in a while. I don't know.
33:20The fruits of government ripen very slowly.
33:23Well, that would be a good way to put it, yes.
33:27It's going to be 10 years, 15 years before there is any significant change in the patterns of exposure in the diets of infants and children
33:38as a result of this National Academy of Science report. And that's if the system works fast.
33:44But nothing happens quickly today when it comes to pesticide regulation.
33:50After the Reagan administration cut back the EPA's pesticide program,
33:5410 congressional committees rushed to the rescue and Congress began to issue a flurry of often conflicting demands.
34:01Now it's unclear who knows anything about the subject. The markups are scripted. The debates are scripted. Everything is now sort of canned and the Senator becomes a performer.
34:16They deliver the, to deliver the script and you're never sure.
34:20Tom Jorling was a Senate staffer 20 years ago when Congress first ordered that pesticides be tested for safety.
34:27And so you had a proliferation of staff. Now when I come down here, they can't even get a schedule together to bring the staff together, much less get a meeting with the members.
34:40Now it's theater. You come into this room during a markup and it's filled with high paid lobbyists. The media are covering it. The staff have given scripts to their members. They read the scripts.
34:52I know that our staffs have worked diligently to examine all the unanswered questions.
34:57There are now more than 300 congressional staffers working on some part of federal pesticide law. The members have all they can do to keep up with the debate.
35:07It's a process now that has been removed from the accountability of the individually elected senators.
35:14And it has been transferred into kind of a theater where the staff play a much more dominant role, where the arrayed interest groups play a much greater role.
35:25So while lobbyists work to protect the interests of agribusiness, food tolerances set decades ago remain in effect with incomplete data to support their safety.
35:36It smelled as good as toast and french fries and ketchup.
35:40The problem is that the system is set up depending on good luck. It's set up hoping that the levels will be quite low in the food rather than limiting it to those levels.
35:49It's a little like setting the speed limit at 7,000 miles an hour and congratulating yourself that no one exceeds the speed limit.
35:56The numbers are set so high that clearly there's very little food out there that is violative, that breaks the law.
36:03According to the Food and Drug Administration, less than 3% of our produce violates the law for pesticide residues.
36:20The problem is, FDA samples only 1% of the produce reaching American consumers.
36:27You're going to have to take them out.
36:29In the winter, 40% of our produce comes from outside the country, like these tomatoes at this inspection station on the Mexican border.
36:39Curiously, the third most frequently detected residue is DDT, which is still used heavily in Central America even though it was banned in this country decades ago.
36:52It has been 30 years since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and many of the same questions are still being asked.
37:08Only now, instead of looking at the immediate impact of pesticides, wildlife scientists are documenting some long-term effects.
37:18More and more studies are indicating that pesticides are increasingly finding their way into the food chain through fish, birds, and mammals.
37:28There are concerns that these pesticide residues are disrupting such basic biological processes as the endocrine, nervous, and immune system.
37:39I was working on a book on the state of the environment of the Great Lakes, and I became fascinated with the fact that there was this suite of anomalies that were being seen in the offspring of the animals in the Great Lakes, not in the adult animals.
37:58It was very evident in at least 11 of these species that had been studied quite extensively, that it was the mother's exposure that was causing the effect in the offspring.
38:11And all I kept thinking was, my gosh, these same chemicals that are in these animals are in humans.
38:22The studies suggested that chemical contamination produce some grotesque deformities.
38:28You can't find a top predator fish in the Great Lakes. It doesn't have an enlarged thyroid.
38:33Just because that happens in fish, though, can we assume it would happen in humans?
38:39We don't know. And we can't experiment with people.
38:45We may not know the long-term effects of these toxins on humans, but we do know one important thing.
38:53These chemicals, once they're incorporated into the tissue of the mother, will go into the bloodstream, cross the placental barrier, and be incorporated into the tissue of the unborn child.
39:06No way of stopping it?
39:07No way of stopping it. Certainly not.
39:09It has been demonstrated in the laboratory that these chemicals can change the way the endocrine system, the nervous system, the immune system, and the metabolic processes take place in the body.
39:22Basically, how those systems develop, or how they are constructed, are controlled by the presence of these chemicals in the womb.
39:34That could then change the child in some way?
39:36That, certainly. You change the building blocks of an individual or a building or a house, and the foundation has to be perfect. If it isn't perfect, you've got problems.
39:48Profound questions remain to be asked about the long-term effects of pesticide exposure on children.
40:00It's just like the National Academy study on pesticides in children. All they did was look at food. Again, one source. Very narrow-minded. Why didn't they look at everything?
40:12From the mother's exposure that's passed on to that child. From the child's exposure from the breast milk. From the child's exposure crawling around on the lawn that somebody just put some herbicides on because they didn't want dandelions in their yard.
40:28So we don't even really know how much exposure children have now?
40:36No, we don't. We truly don't. We truly don't know what the long-term, cumulative, delayed health effects are of these chemicals in children.
40:52When will we now? We may have to wait another generation again.
40:59And those who have experienced the most extreme pesticide exposure feel a sense of urgency to get the answers.
41:06It's common sense. We've got to wake up. We've all got to wake up. Because if we're dying, you're not escaping from it either. You're children's children.
41:14We've got to find a safe place. And the way to start is we've got to get our government to be accountable to what they're registering out there and what they're permitting, what pesticides they're permitting.
41:26Study them. And if it causes cancer or defects, stop it.
41:32If you have 600 active ingredients that are out there being used in commerce in large, large quantity, and you haven't tested but a small subset of them, that means you're using the population as experimental animals for the ones you haven't tested.
41:48By definition, you're doing that. So that's not good public policy.
41:52But public policy on agricultural chemicals has gotten bogged down in the minutiae of bureaucracy and the politics of pesticides. Caution and delay control the agenda.
42:05It's outrageous. Every year that it goes on without resolution, it's a travesty. We're eating that stuff.
42:15Well, we're going to work on it.
42:18And work, and work they will. In 1972, the law regulating pesticides was only 35 pages long. This year, it will be well over 200 pages, filled with special clauses to accommodate a variety of interests.
42:36Whatever the chairman wants is clearly a priority.
42:38Well, great.
42:41The chairman is Quica de la Garza from Texas, a 28-year veteran.
42:46Is there any money someplace?
42:48De la Garza heads the powerful House Agriculture Committee, which has principal jurisdiction over pesticide regulation.
42:54I'll be right back to talk to you about this forestry market. Back in 10 seconds.
42:58Okay.
42:59The chairman's committee has proven to be the most influential voice on federal pesticide law. And that's why everyone with an interest in agriculture wants to be friends with Chairman Quica de la Garza.
43:12Hi, Mr. Chairman.
43:13Chairman de la Garza controls the $68 billion budget at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His House committee sets agriculture priorities and funds them.
43:24He and his fellow members are aggressively courted by agribusiness. In just the last five years, powerful agricultural interests donated more than $1 million to their campaigns.
43:37The committee will be in order.
43:40On any working day here, you'll find lobbyists for everything from chemical companies to food retailers watching to make sure that change does not hurt their clients.
43:51So simple questions become more complicated, and the members struggle to keep up.
43:57There are no further questions. The question is on the agreement of...
44:00House Agriculture Committee meetings are always full. But this is one of the least crowded hearing rooms on Capitol Hill.
44:08Here is where they discuss alternative approaches to farming. The Senate Subcommittee on Agricultural Research, chaired by South Dakota Senator Tom Daschall.
44:18There are rarely chemical lobbyists in this room.
44:21I hope that today's discussion will generate some good ideas about how...
44:25Less than 7 percent of the USDA's research budget goes towards promoting alternatives to chemical agriculture. At EPA, the number is less than 3 percent.
44:36Of the 800 EPA employees in the Office of Pesticide Programs, only 5 work on alternatives to chemicals, a research effort of slightly more than a half million dollars.
44:51So the development of alternative methods of pest control rests largely in the hands of entrepreneurs like Glenn Scriven. His company, Biotactics, grows and markets predator mites that feed on strawberry pests.
45:09The production of natural enemies, predators and parasites, is not as profitable as producing chemicals. And this may be one reason that it's difficult for us to get capital investment to develop this business.
45:28Federal law permits the residues of 67 pesticides in strawberries. The EPA suspects that seven may cause cancer. All but one are old chemicals.
45:47But there are no poisons in this strawberry patch. These workers have another weapon. Glenn Scriven's predator mites. This farm is changing from chemicals to integrated pest management. The workers are getting their first lesson in how to apply them.
46:08Insects are adapting faster than we can kill them with poisons. But even though we are losing the chemical war, the use of natural predators is not likely to replace pesticides any time soon.
46:25Chemicals are still number one.
46:28Last meeting, those of you that were here remembered that the theme was cover crops and I hope you got them in. That's all I can say.
46:37I thought we'd just go around again this morning and bring up any concerns or any revelations.
46:43More and more, small farmers are taking the lead in alternative forms of pest control.
46:48They use it for the Colorado potato beetle. I don't know whether it's working.
46:51I mean, is it something I can commercially go get from somewhere?
46:54What about meaty bug on your place, Fred? What's happened?
46:57Paul Buxman chairs a monthly breakfast with local farmers from the Fresno area.
47:02I think the fact that some of these heavy pesticides are being eliminated, it's nice to know that you can do it without them.
47:10Attendance at the breakfast has been steadily growing. The group calls itself the California Clean Growers Association.
47:17Their aim is to radically reduce their dependence on synthetic chemicals.
47:24When Dad was farming prior to the 1950s, the USDA published some reports that we were losing an annual percentage of fruit, about 7% overall the pest damage.
47:36Today, that's up around 13%.
47:38So, with all of the chemical warfare that we've gotten against our pests, our damage has almost doubled.
47:46Now, there's something real haywire here.
47:48If this stuff is so helpful and useful, why is it that we continue to lose all this stuff?
47:54And has any pest been eradicated? No.
47:57Has any pest been really controlled? No.
48:00Has the chemicals really helped farmers become more independent and economically sound? No.
48:09Buxman uses no poisons in his orchards.
48:12I feel safe with my son out there. We don't post warnings keep out.
48:16He doesn't break out in skin rashes like in the old days, my daughter coming down with total body rashes.
48:22There was something phony, you know, about those studies.
48:26If they're telling you that it's, you know, this is just, don't worry about it.
48:30This is safe. I keep hearing this is the safest thing in the world and so on.
48:35My observation is that that's not true.
48:40Buxman uses no herbicides to strip the ground bare vegetation.
48:44And something good started to happen.
48:48Beneficial insects begin to grow in here.
48:50You can see all kinds of life forms in here.
48:53That little shelled animal provides free calcium for my trees.
48:58Other guys are off buying fertilizer.
49:00And they're buying manures and they're buying calcium nitrate and triple 15 and triple phosphate.
49:05The truth is that all these little organisms will eat this vegetation as it turns it into raw manure.
49:13And what happens is the land finally becomes self fertile.
49:17And the difference is easy to see when Paul Buxman takes a shovel full of dirt from his neighbor's vineyard and compares it to one from his orchard.
49:26Now these soils were identical when we took the farm.
49:29There's just no difference between the two that you could see physically, but I think you can see a difference now.
49:34We began to get earthworms coming in.
49:39And also there's a lot of microscopic, very small critters that are in here.
49:43You can smell it. You can feel it.
49:46The smell is rich and deep.
49:49And there's no smell. This is dead.
49:54This soil, it died. It died a long time ago.
50:00It will take most farmers a long time to catch up with Paul Buxman.
50:05The need to maximize crop yields to pay that mortgage drives American farmers.
50:10They see chemicals as the fastest, surest way to protect their investment.
50:15But the farmer is not the only one responsible.
50:19We consumers, you and I, are part of the problem, demanding the cosmetically perfect fruits and vegetables that chemicals produce.
50:26Did you know that many of the chemicals used have nothing to do with protecting crops?
50:31They merely make fruit bigger, shinier, more pleasing to the eye.
50:36Now admit it, you'd have picked this one too.
50:39And we prefer convenient foods, seedless creations, easy to eat.
50:46When we bred the seeds out of watermelon, we got a poor watermelon.
50:51When we bred the seeds out of grapes, we got weaker grapes.
50:54We've got a grape that was developed by the USDA.
50:59I mean, that grape was just meant to rot.
51:02But you've got to spray it every five days, every row, through the entire harvest season.
51:08To get it to market.
51:10And the only way around that is to spray it with fungicides that are systemic, meaning that it goes into the fruit itself.
51:17It's seedless and it's red.
51:19And that's what the customer wants.
51:21I pulled out 13 acres of seeded grapes because I couldn't sell them.
51:25And that vineyard required almost no pesticide use.
51:29I tried my best to sell those grapes.
51:32I bagged them, I packed them fresh, I trimmed them, I did everything I could.
51:36The customer looked at them and said, eh, seeded, forget it.
51:42The consumer who does not want chemically grown food has to demand it.
51:47But few major supermarket chains offer it.
51:50And nearly all large growers rely heavily on chemicals.
51:55So what should parents of young children do?
51:58Not feed them fruits and vegetables?
52:00Well, that cure might well be worse than a disease because children need the vitamins and minerals this fresh produce has to offer.
52:07But surely the time has come for government to act swiftly and for industry to respond candidly in telling the public what's on and in the produce our children eat.
52:18It's just, it's so hard to change a clumsy way of doing things.
52:28But it will change. Government will change.
52:31What will make it change?
52:33I think what will make a change is that it will die of its own weight.
52:42It can't survive the weight of the paper.
52:46It can't even read and make sense of its own, its own documents.
52:52It can't make decisions based on information that it can't understand.
53:01Committee will be in order.
53:02Good afternoon.
53:04The report about pesticides and the diets of infants and children is now scheduled to be released in June, nearly three years late.
53:13It will be the first government study to ask basic questions about what impact residues of agricultural chemicals might have on children after 40 years of continuous use.
53:26Its likely conclusion, the potential problems merit further study.
53:32The answers seem no closer today than when Rachel Carson first began to ask them three decades ago.
53:45Quite possibly if Maryc
54:06it isn't enough without any frustration
54:10but they also find that God's who could protect ourselves from the wanted to do.
55:44This is PBS.