No parent should have to think twice about the juice they pour their children at breakfast, or a hamburger ordered during dinner out.
President Bill Clinton, radio address, 25 January 1997
Will a clove a day keep the doctor away? That's what John A. Milner, head of the department of nutrition at The Pennsylvania State University College of Health and Human Development, believes. Milner has led a number of studies that indicate that eating garlic (Allium sativum, a member of the lily family) may help reduce the incidence of breast cancer.
Garlic stimulates the body's immune system, boosting the killing ability of natural killer cells and increasing macrophage activity. Garlic also works against heart disease and strokes by lowering cholesterol levels and blood pressure. As an anticancer agent, Milner and others' work shows that garlic slows tumor growth and protects against potential damage from oxidation, free radicals, and nuclear radiation.
Garlic has long been a folk-remedy favorite--ancient manuscripts from Sumer, Egypt, China, and Greece describe the use of garlic for treating everything from snake bites to epilepsy. There is now scientific evidence that the bulbous herb is effective against cancer. Over the last decade, Milner has published and presented numerous studies on the anticancer effects of garlic. In a study published in the October 1992 issue of Carcinogenesis, Milner and colleagues tested the effect of garlic on mammary tumors in rats. They found that dietary garlic administered in powder form caused significant delays in the onset of first mammary tumors and reduced the final number of tumors. The team found that consuming garlic powder depressed the binding of the potent carcinogen 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene to mammary cell DNA in the rats, which may explain why fewer tumors developed.
In a study published in the 15 October 1993 issue of Cancer Letters, Milner and Sujatha Sundaram, a doctoral candidate at Penn State, tested the effect of six organosulfur compounds found in garlic on the growth of canine mammary tumor cells in culture. Three of the compounds--diallyl sulfide, diallyl disulfide, and diallyl trisulfide--sharply curbed the proliferation of tumor cells.
In the 19 April 1996 issue of Cancer Letters, Milner and research assistant Eric Schaffer compared the effect of garlic powder, the water-soluble compound S-allyl cysteine, and diallyl disulfide on the incidence of mammary tumors induced by N-methyl-N-nitrosourea. All three compounds were found to delay the onset of mammary tumors in female rats, and to reduce the overall incidence of tumors. Garlic powder led the race, with an 81% reduction in tumor incidence.
Finally, in a study published in the January 1994 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, a team of scientists from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and the University of Washington in Seattle looked at the effects of 15 different fruits and vegetables on tumors among a group of women from the Iowa Women's Health Study. Of all the fruits and vegetables studied, garlic was found to have the most dramatic relationship with tumor incidence. According to the scientists, consumption of garlic was inversely associated with risk for colon cancer, with a relative risk of 0.68 for the uppermost versus the lowermost consumption levels.
Milner and others must now delineate under what circumstances garlic works, and exactly what it's doing that's so beneficial. Along with Kun Song, a doctoral candidate in the department of nutrition, Milner conducted a study showing that heating in a microwave or conventional oven can completely strip garlic of its cancer-fighting benefits. However, if the garlic is minced or crushed and allowed to stand for at least 10 minutes before heating, there is little or no loss of benefits. The 10-minute standing period allows the enzyme alliinase in the garlic to begin producing allyl sulfur compounds--the compounds with the cancer-fighting properties. If the garlic is cooked immediately after chopping, the heating process deactivates the enzyme and the anticarcinogenic effects of the garlic are lost. Milner presented these findings at a symposium entitled Recent Advances on the Nutritional Benefits Accompanying the Use of Garlic as a Supplement, held in Newport Beach, California, 15-17 November 1998.
So far, the only known adverse health effects from eating too much garlic are gastrointestinal bleeding and stomach upset, plus of course the much-maligned garlic breath. But garlic's rising popularity--thanks to the increasing public and scientific interest in herbal medicine--means that consumers have a choice of ways to take their medicine, including some odorless varieties. Milner says that many of the commercially available garlic preparations that he and colleagues have tested, including deodorized varieties, have anticancer properties. There is little reason to avoid garlic and many reasons to enjoy it, says Milner--in whatever preparation desired.
Is fertilizer hazardous to your health? That question was raised by a sensational 1997 series in the Seattle Times that claimed to have unearthed a widespread and largely unregulated practice of recycling industrial waste into fertilizer. The material in question, which can contain radioactive matter, dioxins, or heavy metals, was being distributed to fertilizer companies or farms by manufacturers eager to avoid treatment and disposal costs by taking advantage of a loophole in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the major federal toxic chemical law.
The series was followed in March 1998 by a report titled Factory Farming, published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC. Using data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), the EWG said that 271 million pounds of toxic waste was received by 454 farms and fertilizer manufacturers in 38 states between 1990 and 1995. The waste contained 69 toxic chemicals, including nearly 6.3 million pounds of lead and lead compounds, 230,000 pounds of cadmium, and 16,000 pounds of mercury, along with 23.5 million pounds of industrial organic chemicals.
Spraying sludge. The practice of recycling industrial wastes into fertilizer has come under fire from opponents who are concerned that toxic contaminants in the sludge may reach food and other crops.
Photo credit: David Tenenbaum
According to the EWG report, the TRI data reveal a "shocking practice by American fertilizer companies. They routinely 'recycle' toxic factory waste of all kinds into fertilizers. . . . The stuff is laden with lead, cadmium, arsenic, dioxin, and other high risk toxics that end up in fertilizers widely used by farmers in the United States." The group charged that state rules on the practice amount to a "loophole-riddled regulatory 'safety net.'" Although the EWG report does not say that actual harm from the practice has been demonstrated, Todd Hattenbach, an EWG researcher, says, "It's a dangerous practice because nobody is looking closely [at it]. The EPA is doing risk assessments, but they don't know what's going into the waste streams right now." The EWG contention is that, rather than having to demonstrate injury, companies should be required to demonstrate the safety of the practice before it is allowed.
John Mortvedt, a retired soil scientist who studied fertilizer contamination for 20 years at the National Fertilizer and Environmental Research Center in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, says the Seattle Times report was more sensational than it needed to be. But he agrees that the story exposed the RCRA loophole, the so-called "KO61" provision, which allows the unregulated transfer of dust--a waste product from the electric arc furnaces used in steel mills--to fertilizer companies. The dust contains zinc, an essential plant micronutrient, as well as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and nickel. According to the EWG report, nearly 30% of the industrial waste that became fertilizer originated at steel mills.
Due to the reporting system used in the TRI, the 271 million pounds of waste that became fertilizer between 1990 and 1995 may actually make up only part of the total transfers. Nevertheless, say critics of the EWG report, the total amount of waste recycled into fertilizer is probably a tiny fraction of overall fertilizer use (estimated at 54 million tons in 1995 alone). Furthermore, once the material is spread on farmland, it is diluted by incorporation into the soil. When contaminants present in a parts-per-million or parts-per-billion amount are spread on soil, Mortvedt notes, "They become inconsequential at some level." Natural soils, he adds, generally contain some heavy metals anyway.
Waste material can be safely recycled in some cases. In 1996, for example, Consolidated Papers recycled 161,000 tons of paper mill sludge on farms near its mill in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. Nitrogen in the sludge replaced conventional fertilizer, and the organic material helped the sandy soil hold water. The sludge was analyzed before disposal for 125 pollutants, including dioxins, heavy metals, and organic pollutants. Similar testing is also required for sewage sludge, which is commonly recycled on farmland under EPA regulation [see EHP 105(1):32-36 (1997)].
The fertilizer industry says there is no cause for alarm. "Based on all the evidence to date, industry has concluded that there's no problem," says Jennifer Lombardi, communications director for the California Fertilizer Association. "But if conclusions based on science say there is a problem, industry would be supportive of a way to address that."
However, the issue of heavy metals in fertilizer is getting attention. Washington State has enacted regulations requiring contamination tests for fertilizers, but the tests look just for heavy metals. Texas has adopted rules that will allow the same concentrations of contaminants in fertilizer that are currently allowed for biosolids. California, which the EWG reported had received the greatest amount of industrial waste-derived fertilizer (37.6 million pounds), is completing a facilitative rule-making process on heavy metals in fertilizer. By 1 March 1999, a state panel is supposed to suggest whether the California Department of Food and Agriculture should issue further regulations. Meanwhile, the American Association of Plant Food Control Officials, a group of fertilizer regulators, is developing a uniform standard on heavy metal content that will be presented to all U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and Canada for adoption.
The EPA has started a risk assessment of heavy metals in fertilizer. According to one EPA official involved in the discussions, the agency reviewed available data on fertilizer composition and found that "some fertilizer may have arsenic, lead, and cadmium--the three primary culprits--at levels they maybe should not have, but it's not an emergency out there." However, the EWG maintains that the EPA is not able to calculate the risks because it lacks enough data on what components are actually contained in fertilizer. An upcoming revision of RCRA's provisions, scheduled for publication in early 2000, may close the KO61 loophole, but with state regulation in the offing, the EPA is unlikely to write comprehensive fertilizer regulations. The EWG's vice president for research, Richard Wiles, advocates halting the use of industrial waste as fertilizer, saying, "We need a moratorium until we have a reasonable program of testing waste before it's manufactured into fertilizer."
When a patient complained to oncologist Robert DiPaola of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey of breast tenderness, muscle pain, and loss of libido--all classic side effects of estrogen therapy--the doctor was perplexed. His patient had rejected hormone treatment for prostate cancer because of its abhorrent side effects and limited potential for a cure.
The patient also showed signs of estrogen's good effects. His level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), an indicator of prostate cancer, had plummeted. The patient admitted he was taking PC-SPES, an herbal remedy derived from nine separate herbs and mushrooms that is sold over the Internet. DiPaola soon began to notice similar effects in other patients taking PC-SPES. He presented the case to Michael Gallo, the institute's associate director for basic science, who recalls: "I said, 'We've got an estrogen here. Let's take a look at these herbs.'"
DiPaola and Gallo turned their attention toward the men, conducting a clinical trial involving eight cancer patients taking the herbal remedy. They found that PC-SPES causes a decrease in testosterone and PSA, along with other symptoms of estrogen use. The researchers then enlisted George Lambert, a clinical pharmacologist at the NIEHS Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute in Piscataway, New Jersey, to examine PC-SPES for estrogenic activity.
A yeast-based assay used by Lambert confirmed Gallo and DiPaola's suspicions that PC-SPES acts as an estrogen. "This is as potent as a drug," says DiPaolo. Says Gallo, "It was the collaboration of the expertise of these two centers that allowed us to make this discovery. This is the type of bioassay that should be done on herbal products." The three researchers and nine other colleagues reported their findings in the 17 September 1998 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Doctors' Guidelines for Herbal Medicines
In a letter to the editor in the 11 November 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, two physicians from the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia exhort doctors and clinicians to familiarize themselves with the health effects of the most popular herbal products on the market, and provide a table to guide doctors in discussing the use of herbal products with patients who are taking or thinking of taking them. The authors, Michael Cirigliano and Anthony Sun, point out that sales of herbal products, including items such as garlic (Allium sativum), Ginkgo biloba, and saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) are increasing by 25% per year. With that many herbal preparations being consumed, they argue, it is "no longer acceptable for the clinician simply to state that these products 'do not work' or to claim ignorance regarding their use." In particular, they say, pregnant or lactating women should not use herbal products, and infants, children, and the elderly should use them only under medical supervision. Many herbs, such as comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), are known to have toxic effects in humans. However, the authors write, herbal products could potentially add a great deal to the existing pharmacopoeia of therapeutic agents--but more study on their safety and efficacy is needed first. |
Journal editors Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer used the report as a springboard for their editorial calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require the same rigorous testing of alternative medicines that it requires of conventional drugs. PC-SPES, like other plant-derived substances, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, is considered a dietary supplement. The FDA regulates supplement labeling but requires no testing.
The NEJM report hit a nerve among those who view herbal remedies as distinctly different--and safer--than their synthetic cousins. "I believed there was a possibility of a potential cure with this," says Mario Menelly, a PC-SPES user and subject in DiPaola's clinical trial. "It's nothing but herbs. It shouldn't hurt me." The article prompted a spate of letters to the editor from both sides of the issue, scheduled to be published in a future issue of NEJM.
In the long run, PC-SPES may be no more harmful than conventional treatment, but nobody knows for sure. Even proponents of herbal remedies recommend more clinical trials. "We need large-scale studies," says Sophie Chen, a professor of medicine at New York Medical College in Valhalla, who developed PC-SPES five years ago. "I would like to see it become a prescription medicine."
The yeast assay used to screen PC-SPES is among several developed in recent years that can measure estrogenic activity quickly and inexpensively. For a half-century, the only assay for estrogen required mice. Scientists fed mice the substance under study for several days, then sacrificed them and weighed their uteruses. Estrogenic substances cause the uterus to enlarge.
Mice assays are still considered the gold standard--DiPaolo and Gallo followed the yeast screening with a mouse assay--but may soon be replaced with yeast and other cellular assays. "It's less expensive," explains Elizabeth Jeffery, an associate professor of nutritional toxicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "It's less labor-intensive. It's much more rapid." The yeast assay initially was used to screen PC-SPES for estrogen that binds to alpha receptors, which are found primarily in reproductive tissue. A few years ago, researchers discovered a second receptor, beta, that binds to estrogen in the brain, bone, kidneys, and other organs. Lambert's group is now developing a greater array of hormone receptor assays to screen the herbal remedy with beta receptors.
The yeast assay was constructed to simulate response of the human estrogen receptor system when exposed to an estrogenic mixture. When an estrogenic substance is added to the medium, the yeast proliferate. If the substance is not estrogenic, the yeast die. Like other screening assays, the yeast assay has limitations. It will not indicate activity in compounds that become estrogenic only after they're oxidized in the body, such as the pesticide methoxychlor. Differences in the permeability of yeast and human cell membranes also could confound results. "Something may not be able to get through the cell wall of yeast even though it gets through the cell membrane of humans," Lambert says.
To some cancer patients, like Mario Menelly, yeast assays and clinical trials don't mean a thing. Menelly is sticking with an unregulated mixture of herbs, even if it causes the same side effects as conventional, hormonal drugs. "It's only herbs," he says. "It comes from the earth."
His attitude is common. More than half of U.S. adults use dietary supplements, according to the FDA. Estimates of alternative-therapy usage among cancer patients range from 5% to 60%. "This isn't just a fad that'll go away in two months," says John Cardellina, director of botanical science for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade organization representing manufacturers of dietary supplements. Cardellina laments the lack of information about dietary supplements for both consumers and physicians. "Doctors do not know enough about botanical products," he says. "They don't know what to expect in terms of efficacy and side effects. This [NEJM report] may get oncologists to look at PC-SPES and what it can do."
In 1998, the Caribbean region endured the worst hurricane season in modern history. In October Hurricane Mitch, the most devastating storm to strike Central America, killed an estimated 9,600 people--more people than any Atlantic tropical cyclone since 1780--and spawned a medical and environmental catastrophe. In the weeks following the storm, health authorities were deeply concerned about emerging epidemics of infectious diseases. Gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses were rampant, especially among children. Thousands lacked access to medical care, 1 million people were homeless, and water supplies were contaminated by floods. In overcrowded shelters, hygiene was poor and food supplies were low.
Mitch produced enormous downpours across the region, in nations including Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Belize. More than two feet of rain fell in the mountains of Honduras in a single day, and an estimated six feet of rain over seven days swamped some agricultural areas, drowning crops. "Six feet of rainfall over such a brief period is unprecedented," says Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment.
Health authorities in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras have reported clusters of diseases such as dengue fever, hemorrhagic dengue fever, and malaria, which are spread by mosquitoes; leptospirosis, which is linked to contamination by rat urine; and cholera, which can spread through polluted drinking water and contaminated food. Until recently, it was very uncommon to see such multiple outbreaks of infections, Epstein says. But over the past decade, there has been an increase in clusters of such illnesses in numerous regions around the world following heavy, prolonged rains.
According to a November 30 report of the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) emergency task force on Hurricane Mitch, in Honduras there have been 16 confirmed cases of cholera, 1,908 cases of malaria, 6 cases of leptospirosis, 1,165 cases of dengue fever, and 49 cases of hemorrhagic dengue fever. But in Central America, the gravest health threats, especially for children, are acute respiratory illnesses (including pneumonia) and diarrhea. These have already afflicted thousands of victims.
Although respiratory illness can be treated with antibiotics and diarrheal afflictions can be treated with an oral rehydration solution, it has been difficult to transport medicines to communities across damaged roads and bridges. "Clean water has been scarce in many areas, and people lack fuel to boil dirty water," says Daniel Epstein, press officer for PAHO. Many parents aren't aware of the danger of severe dehydration, which can kill children quickly, he says. "Chronic dysentery doesn't grab the headlines, but it is responsible for far more loss of life [than other illnesses in the region after the storm]," says Matthew Chico, regional specialist for Latin America and the Caribbean for the American Red Cross. To supply drinking water plants, the agency has already sent 20,000 pounds of purifying chemicals, with another 20,000 pounds on the way and a third shipment of 20,000 pounds planned. The American Red Cross has also distributed chlorine and iodine tablets to purify water.
Mitch caused extraordinary crop losses throughout the region. Nearly 70% of Honduran crops were ruined, according to the U.S. Embassy. Grain fields and the shrimp industry were devastated. The fourth largest banana producer in the world, Honduras lost 90% of its banana crop. In Guatemala, 95% of the nation's banana crop was reported destroyed, plus 25-60% of the corn, bean, coffee, and sugar crops. These effects are especially harmful because so many in Central America rely on farming for jobs. For example, in Honduras, about 54% of the workforce is employed in agriculture.
The sound and the fury. Hurricane Mitch wreaked havoc on the environment and on the lives of people living in its path in Central America.
Photo credit: Luis F. Bueso
Extensive logging and burning of forests contributed to massive flooding during Mitch, according to the Rainforest Alliance, an international conservation organization. Central America has lost two-thirds of its forests to logging, agriculture, fires, and development, most of it over the past 30 years. About 75% of the land in Central America is hilly or mountainous. Farmers have routinely planted crops along open slopes, which do not hold the soil as well as wooded areas during heavy rains. In Nicaragua, a tragic incident illustrated a disastrous use of the land. A volcano called
Casita, or "Little House," was home to subsistence farmers settled there by the government. Farmers had cleared trees to plant crops on the volcano's slope. But after a week of rain during Mitch, one side of the volcano collapsed, burying an estimated 2,000 people in mud. In recent years, farmers and ranchers have purposely set fires, mistakenly believing that burning will improve the soil. To compound the problem, in the first half of 1998 a regionwide drought spread wildfires, burning about 3 million acres.
Mitch overshadowed another tragic natural disaster in the Caribbean this year--Hurricane Georges's rampage across the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and other nations in September 1998. Georges crushed important banana plantations, coffee crops, and sugarcane fields. In the Dominican Republic, 150,000 people were displaced by the storm. In Saint Kitts-Nevis, 25% of the homes were destroyed, and 50% of the sugar harvest lost. "Georges caused comparable crop losses to Mitch," says Chico. "The effects of Georges were just as great, particularly in the Dominican Republic. But when Mitch entered the scene, Georges was forgotten."
Despite the devastation in Central America, national governments and the international community are making a concerted effort to clean up the damage and to plan redevelopment. And on the local level "there is a strong community effort," says Ann Stingle, international press officer for the American Red Cross, who visited the region in early November. "People are working to help themselves."
On 8 January 1999, Morris E. Potter was named director of the National Food Safety Initiative. As initiative director, Potter will oversee the food safety activities of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, expand and improve the FDA's food-related inspection and surveillance systems, enhance FDA collaborations with other government agencies in responding to foodborne illness outbreaks, institute additional prevention controls and strategies, and conduct nationwide public education campaigns.
Potter most recently served as assistant director for foodborne diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and acted as CDC liaison to the National Food Safety Initiative. Potter has also served as director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Foodborne Disease Surveillance, and has worked in various veterinary epidemiologist positions in a number of state, federal, and foreign food safety programs, including those of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Department of Public Health. Potter has served on four National Academy of Sciences panels and on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods.
In support of the National Food Safety Initiative, the FDA recently established a new Web site, located at http://www.foodsafety.gov, that offers information and resources for consumers, food industry workers, and educators. The Reporting Illnesses & Product Complaints link leads consumers to information on whom to contact in the event of various food-related health complaints. The Consumer Advice link accesses information on special topics in food-related health, such as food safety for expectant mothers and senior citizens, and guidelines for handling specific foods such as eggs and seafood. The Industry Assistance link offers a gateway to numerous regulatory Web sites, such as the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs and the CDC's Top 20 Hazardous Substances list. The Kids, Teens, & Educators link brings up educational information geared toward young people, as well as lesson plans and other resources for teachers who want to inform their students about food risks. The Foodborne Pathogens link offers fact sheets on specific illnesses such as listeriosis, and links to government sites with information on various foodborne organisms. Other links on the home page access recent safety alerts, background information on the initiative, and Web sites for other state and federal government agencies. |
For farmers, researchers, and consumers concerned about the pesticides used on food, the next seven years will be momentous. By August 2006, the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) plans to have taken a second look at every limit that has been set for an amount of residual pesticide that can remain in a food product. That means that the OPP will be reviewing some 9,700 tolerances that have been set for 470 pesticides. The goal of the reviews is to address the key issues raised in the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA): Does the pesticide tolerance allow for possible aggregate exposures? Could residues below the tolerable limit be dangerous when combined with exposures to other pesticides? Does the tolerance sufficiently protect children? And what are the effects of the pesticide on the endocrine system? Based on the reviews, the EPA will set new tolerances, and it is likely that some pesticide uses will be banned altogether.
For the many stakeholders that will want to scrutinize the OPP's decisions over the next seven years, the EPA has provided the OPP home page, located on the World Wide Web at http://www.epa.gov/pesticides. For background information on the legislation that is shaping most of the OPP's current work, users can select the FQPA link on the menu bar at the top of the OPP home page. The What's New link on the home page provides a summary of all the recent actions taken by the OPP. Here, people involved in agribusiness can see if the OPP is reviewing a pesticide of concern to them, scientists can access the latest research guidelines proposed by the OPP, and consumers can view the most recent warnings about health effects associated with pesticide consumption. Drafts of OPP decisions are posted here while the office seeks public comment on them. Information on how to submit comments is provided.
To read about past actions taken by the OPP, users can click on the links on the left side of the home page. The Researchers & Scientists link, for example, is connected to the final report outlining how the EPA will determine if a pesticide affects the endocrine system, and a description of how the OPP determines dietary exposure to a pesticide. Links to pesticide databases and information on selected grant programs are also provided here.
Under the Business & Industry link, the EPA provides software that can be downloaded to use the Pesticide Tolerance Index System, a regularly updated list of all the limits set on pesticide residues in food. Also linked to the Business & Industry section is a database containing registration information on 89,000 pesticide products. To view a concise list of the pesticides that have been banned or severely restricted in the United States, users can select the International Activities link on the OPP home page, and then choose the FIFRA Section 17(a) Notification of Exports link. Activities specific to one area of the country can be found on the pesticide pages maintained by each EPA region; these can be accessed by following the Regions, States and Tribes link on the home page.
For people who are less concerned with the details of regulatory decisions and more concerned with how pesticides might affect them, the EPA provides the Concerned Citizens link on the OPP home page. Included under this link is advice on how to control pests safely in your home, information about the possibility of pesticides being present in well water, and a straightforward description of the steps the EPA is taking to protect people from pesticides.
Last Updated: March 1, 1999