April 19, 2016, Washington, D.C.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will convene an independent Scientific Advisory Panel today through Thursday to review health-based limits for the dangerous and widely-used pesticide chlorpyrifos. This decision comes after years of advocacy by farmworker, environmental health and conservation groups, urging EPA to ban chlorpyrifos because of the neurodevelopmental harm it causes to children.

The panel will assess EPA’s proposal to establish a limit that would prevent brain damage to children.

“This is an important step in the right direction,” said Virginia Ruiz of Farmworker Justice. “But it is only a step. Every month and every year, farmworkers and their families are exposed to illegal and dangerous levels of brain-damaging chlorpyrifos. EPA must protect farmworkers and their children—right away.”

“This is a long-awaited step by EPA to do what science and the law demand: outlaw chlorpyrifos to prevent further harms to children’s brains,” said Earthjustice Attorney Patti Goldman, on behalf of a coalition of groups. “It is time to stop the unconscionable brain damage to children, often rural and farmworker children. We applaud EPA for taking this step toward protecting children and farmworkers from this pesticide.”

“It is astonishing that harm to a generation of our children has been ignored and allowed,” said Erik Nicholson of United Farm Workers. “But we are encouraged that EPA is moving toward protecting the next generation, to make sure they don’t suffer the same brain damaging effects of chlorpyrifos that no child and no parent should ever have to fear. We all have a right to a fair chance at a healthy life—this announcement brings that vision a step closer to reality.”