Farmworkers handling pesticides have less protection than industrial chemical workers

A group of public health advocates, environmental lawyers and labor groups want the Obama administration to protect farm workers who handle pesticides regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency at the same level as those "whose work with industrial chemicals is overseen by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture," Jeremy Jacobs of Energy & Environment News reports.

The rule in question is the Worker Protection Standard under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which Jacobs reports hasn't been updated since 1992. EPA said it was going to release a proposed update early next year. The coalition of groups wants the agency to make changes to protect farm workers' health, including requiring medical monitoring of workers using pesticides known to affect the nervous system, "closed systems" for mixing and loading pesticides to avoid splashing and spilling and enclosed tractor cabs when pesticides are being sprayed. Medical monitoring of workers and closed mixing systems are already required in California and Washington.

Eve Gartner of Earthjustice told Jacobs that farm workers, most of which are low-income minorities, are treated in a second-class way because their health is not protected by the EPA. "We must speak up for the very people who help to put food on our tables," she said. "Their work is integral to our daily lives and further delay in providing these basic protections is just unacceptable." (Read more)