After the Environmental Protection Agency put out a study on the pesticide aldicarb (brand name Temik) that found it posed a safety risk to infants and young children, the company producing it, Bayer, decided to phase it out. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it will take eight years before the chemical is no longer used on crops like cotton, peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes, sugarcane and sugar beets. Even worse, this chemical has been in use since 1970. So what’s eight more years, right? Eight more years too many!
The chemical safety standards are about as backwards as they get. Instead of requiring strict safety testing before chemicals like this are introduced, it takes 40 years of spraying it on our crops before it is decided that’s not such a good idea. And that means exposure to millions of infants and young children over the past four decades.
Ridiculous!