For Nina: why FOIA required for internal pesticide memos, etc.

[Sue.Darcey, Pesticide Report <sdarcey@erols.com>]

Nina:

I have a couple of the internal EPA health effects memos you may
be interested in, because I filed FOIAs for them in 1998 and 1999
to retrieve them.  A list of what I have and would be willing to
share with you is at the bottom of this memo.

I have been down this road before on trying to retrieve internal
memos on pesticide health effects from OPP (EPA Office of Pesticide
Programs), and have queried pesticide program staff on why you
can't get this information more easily, so let me share with you
some of the things they have told me, and what I've learned from
experience:

1) The specific staff in Health Effects Division who generate these
memos want the public to know about them, but are hampered in
releasing them upon request to reporters, environmental groups, or
plaintiffs' attorneys working on toxic tort cases because of some
policy decisions made by managers at the Office of Pesticide
Programs, and in some cases, by attorneys in EPA's Office of General
Counsel.  Staff have been instructed by their bosses to make the
requestor go through the Freedom of Information Act to retrieve
these memos, and in some cases, staff have been "gagged" by their
bosses from discussing the contents of the memos, and are under
threat of losing their jobs at EPA if they do so.  The managers
don't want the memos released because in many cases, they reflect
raw data about pesticide poisonings, and OPP managers, like pesticide
manufacturers, lean towards "putting the data into context", before
releasing it to the general public.

2) The type of stuff in these memos is important and powerful
information.  The memos can tell you, for example, which pesticides
have killed people, caused life-threatening illnesses, put them in
hospitals, made them lose days off work, or caused chronic illnesses.
The memos break down which age groups are affected by specific
pesticides and go into detail about the where the exposures that
caused the most problems (be it at home, on the job, at school,
etc.) occurred.  They compare pesticide active ingredients
side-by-side, and rank specific pesticides by the amount of damage
they do to human health.

3)The statistical information used as the basis for the memos has
to be purchased by EPA for thousands of dollars from poison control
centers, or is supplied under confidentiality agreements from a
number of sources, such as state governments, private consultants,
etc.

4)Some of the data in the memos is extrapolated from pesticide
adverse effects incidents reports that pesticides manufacturers
are required to routinely report to EPA under Section 6(a)(2) of
the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.  The
manufacturers of pesticides do not want their customers and the
general public to know what types of symptoms some people are
reporting after being exposed to these pesticides, which in many
cases, are products that are commonly used by consumers around
homes and gardens, and by exterminators and lawn care service
providers. Pesticide manufacturers ("registrants", in agency
lingo)are constantly putting pressure on OPP managers NOT to release
this information to the general public.


5) Despite all these barriers to release of the health effects
memos, it is easier and faster to retrieve these memos through
FOIA, than it is to try to retrieve the raw 6(a)(2) adverse effects
incident data through FOIA.  I think it took me about 1 month last
year to get my hands on an "organophosphate poisoning incident"
memo, after I filed a request with OPP through the Freedom of
Information Act.  It takes about 4-5 months via FOIA to get all
the adverse effects incident reports for the past two-four years
on any well-known and heavily used pesticide; about 2 months on a
lesser-known pesticide.

6) Some people are in powerful enough positions to cut through the
EPA Pesticide Office red tape, and get health effects memos and
adverse effects incident reports immediately.  In summer of 1999,a
reporter for U.S. News and World Report who was working on a story
about chlorpyrifos (Dursban), got a hold of one of the officials
in EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances,
told him what information he was seeking, and was handed the relevant
adverse effects reports and incident memos within 48 hours.  I
imagine that if you worked on a congressman or senator's staff, or
was a reporter for the Washington Post or the New York Times, you
could do the same.

The rest of us poor schlubs, however, have to get the information
the hard way, which is via FOIA.

7) Supposedly, one day in the future (perhaps within the next ten
years?) all the adverse effects incident data, stripped of its
confidential information, such as victims' names and addresses,
will be placed on a database that is accessible through the Internet.
The current database being used by the Office of Pesticide Programs
to store the adverse effects data is reportedly "not compatible"
with the internet, because the database is so old.

8) Another barrier to timely release of the adverse effects data
is lack of staff/funding in the OPP division that manages the
information.  OPP managers tell me that money is tight, and that
they are not likely to get more staff or contractors any time soon.



INTERNAL EPA PESTICIDE MEMOS/INCIDENT REPORTS THAT I'VE RETRIEVED
THROUGH FOIA OR OTHERWISE, AND AM WILLING TO SHARE, (for 7 cents
per page -- the cost of getting them copied at Kinko's):

Feb. 11, 1999:  "Review of Poison Control Center Data for Residential
Exposures to Organophosphate Pesticides, 1993-1996" from Jerome
Blondell, Health Effects Division, to Dennis Utterbach, Special
Review and Reregistration Division" (34 pages)

June 28, 1999:  "Specific Chemical Incident Reports/Chlorpyrifos,"
Report 1 -- June 22, 1997 to June 22, 1998. 122 pages, approximately
610 incident reports.

June 28, 1999:  "Specific Chemical Incident Reports/Chlorpyrifos,"
Report 2 -- June 23, 1998 to June 22, 1999.  95 pages, approximately
475 incident reports.

Jan. 4, 1999:  "Incident Data System Summary Reports/Esfenvalerate,"
(reports from about August 1994 to June 16, 1998, 5 pages long,
about 84 incidents).

Jan. 4, 1999:  "Incident Data System Summary Reports/Permethrin,"
(reports from about Fall 1991 to May 1997, 83 pages long, approximately
1,909 incident reports)

I have similar reports, also, on:  azinphos-methyl, bacillus
thuringiensis, fipronil, spinosad, thiodicarb, chlorfenapyr,
cyhalothrin, methomyl, and profenofos.

Just Email me and tell me what you and I'll try to get it to you,
by fax or by U.S. mail.

Sue Darcey, Pesticide Report