For half a century, staple food crops in the United States — such as corn, wheat, apples and citrus — have been sprayed with chlorpyrifos, a dangerous pesticide that can damage the developing brains of children, causing reduced IQ, loss of working memory, and attention deficit disorders.

Earthjustice, alongside other groups, has pushed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban chlorpyrifos, as it is known to harm human health, water, and wildlife. The U.S. EPA was expected to make a decision in 2017. But two days before the court-ordered deadline, the Trump administration's EPA reversed the agency’s own proposal and refused to ban the pesticide.

In July 2019, Trump’s EPA said chlorpyrifos is safe, despite years of scientific evidence saying the opposite. The following month, health and labor organizations, represented by Earthjustice, sued the EPA for keeping chlorpyrifos on the market. Several states also filed lawsuits over the EPA’s failure to adequately protect children from the intellectual disabilities chlorpyrifos is linked to.

Our clients League of United Latin American Citizens; Pesticide Action Network North America; Natural Resources Defense Council; California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation; Farmworkers Association of Florida; Farmworker Justice; Greenlatinos; Labor Council for Latin American Advancement; Learning Disabilities Association of America; National Hispanic Medical Association; Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste; United Farm Workers Legal documents & more

“It is a tragedy that this administration sides with corporations instead of children’s health,” said Patti Goldman, the lead Earthjustice attorney in the fight to ban chlorpyrifos.

“Every day we go without a ban, children and farmworkers are needlessly eating, drinking, and breathing this dreadful pesticide. Earthjustice and our clients won’t stand for this.”

Here’s what you should know about chlorpyrifos and the ongoing struggle to keep this dangerous chemical away from our food, water, and wildlife.

What is chlorpyrifos? (pronounced: klawr-pir-uh-fos) is Chlorpyrifosis a neurotoxic pesticide widely used in U.S. agriculture. Generally sprayed on crops, it’s used to kill a variety of agricultural pests. It has a slightly skunky odor, similar to rotten eggs or garlic, and can be harmful if it is touched, inhaled, or eaten. Chlorpyrifos is acutely toxic and associated with neurodevelopmental harms in children. Prenatal exposures to chlorpyrifos are associated with lower birth weight, reduced IQ, loss of working memory, attention disorders, and delayed motor development. Acute poisoning suppresses the enzyme that regulates nerve impulses in the body and can cause convulsions, respiratory paralysis, and, in extreme cases, death. Chlorpyrifos is one of the pesticides most often linked to pesticide poisonings. Close Section Read More

Annette Dubois / CC BY 2.0 Children often experience greater exposure to chlorpyrifos because they drink more water and juice for their weight, relative to adults, and frequently put their hands in their mouths.

How are people exposed to chlorpyrifos? People are exposed to chlorpyrifos through residues on food, drinking water contamination, and toxic spray drift from pesticide applications. Farmworkers are exposed to it from mixing, handling, and applying the pesticide; as well as from entering fields where chlorpyrifos was recently sprayed. Residential uses of chlorpyrifos ended in 2000 after EPA found unacceptable risks to kids. Children often experience greater exposure to chlorpyrifos and other pesticides because they frequently put their hands in their mouths and, relative to adults, they eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink more water and juice for their weight. Close Section Read More

Lance Cheung / USDA A farmworker gathers sweet potatoes in Mechanicsville, VA. Sweet potatoes are one of the many crops that chlorpyrifos is used on. Agricultural workers are at high risk for pesticide poisoning.

Martin do Nascimento / Earthjustice In this video, agricultural worker Claudia Angulo describes how her son Isaac suffered brain damage after she was exposed to chlorpyrifos during pregnancy. Since Isaac’s diagnosis with ADHD, she has worked to raise awareness among farm workers, the public, and politicians about the chemical's health effects.

Why do we need a ban? A growing body of evidence shows that prenatal exposure to very low levels of chlorpyrifos — levels far lower than what EPA was previously using to establish safety standards — harms babies permanently. Peer-reviewed studies that have tracked real-world exposures of mothers and their children to chlorpyrifos have associated the pesticide with similar findings. there are no safe uses for the pesticide. EPA found that: All food exposures exceed safe levels, with children ages 1–2 exposed to levels of chlorpyrifos that are 140 times what EPA deems safe.

There is no safe level of chlorpyrifos in drinking water.

Pesticide drift reaches unsafe levels at 300 feet from the field’s edge.

Chlorpyrifos is found at unsafe levels in the air at schools, homes, and communities in agricultural areas.

All workers who mix and apply chlorpyrifos are exposed to unsafe levels of the pesticide even with maximum personal protective equipment and engineering controls.

Field workers are allowed to re-enter fields within 1–5 days after pesticide spraying, but unsafe exposures continue on average 18 days after applications. In November 2016, EPA released a revised human health risk assessment for chlorpyrifos that confirmed that. EPA found that: Farmworkers and people living in agricultural communities, particularly children, are disproportionately affected by this toxic pesticide. In addition to food exposures, they are more likely to have contaminated drinking water, and they are, quite literally, getting hit from all sides by drift exposures at school, daycare, on the playground, at work, and in their homes. Close Section Read More

Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice Jim Cochran, a strawberry farmer, was poisoned by pesticides. People told him no one cared about healthy food and healthy workers. He decided to prove them wrong. More on Jim's story

Which crops have chlorpyrifos on them? Chlorpyrifos is used on a wide variety of crops including apples, oranges, strawberries, corn, wheat, citrus and other foods families and their children eat daily.

Estimated Agricultural Use for Chlorpyrifos. Preliminary for Year 2016. pounds per square mile > 5.49 > 5.49 1.23–5.49 1.23–5.49 0.20–1.22 0.20–1.22 < 0.20 < 0.20 No estimated use No estimated use Pesticide National Synthesis Project / USGS



EPest-low data. Based primarily on surveyed data. State-based and other restrictions on pesticide use are not included. EPest-low data. Based primarily on surveyed data. State-based and other restrictions on pesticide use are not included.

More than half of all apples and broccoli in the U.S. are sprayed with chlorpyrifos. USDA’s Pesticide Data Program found chlorpyrifos residue on citrus and melons even after being washed and peeled. By volume, chlorpyrifos is most used on corn and soybeans, with over a million pounds applied annually to each crop. Lance Cheung / USDA More than half of all apples in the U.S. are sprayed with chlorpyrifos, a pesticide considered too toxic for residential use.

What does the law require? Following the release of a pivotal 1993 report by the National Academy of Sciences , Congress strengthened protections for children from pesticides. The NAS report criticized EPA for treating children like “little adults” by failing to address the unique susceptibility of children to pesticide exposures based on the foods they eat, their play, and sensitive stages of development. The 1996 Food Quality Protect Act — passed unanimously in Congress — requires EPA to protect children from unsafe exposures to pesticides. The FQPA requires EPA to ensure with reasonable certainty that “no harm will result to infants and children from aggregate exposure” to pesticides. EPA cannot take industry costs into consideration when protecting children from harmful pesticides, because FQPA is a health-based standard. If EPA cannot ensure that a pesticide won’t harm children, the law requires EPA to ban uses of the pesticide. Close Section Read More

Lance Cheung / USDA A corn field in Wharton County, TX. More than a million pounds of chlorpyrifos are applied to corn crops each year.

What’s happening now? Earthjustice and our clients are back in court , asking for an order directing the EPA to put a full ban on chlorpyrifos in place. The lawsuit is ongoing. Several states are either about to implement or considering chlorpyrifos bans, including Hawaii, New York, and California. On Feb. 6, 2020, Corteva, Inc. — formerly Dow Chemical — announced it will stop selling the nerve agent pesticide chlorpyrifos, which is linked to brain damage in children. Corteva is the largest producer of chlorpyrifos in the United States. “EPA’s own scientists have said that chlorpyrifos is harmful, particularly to children,” said Patti Goldman , the Earthjustice managing attorney handling the case. “Any delay to ban this toxic chemical is a tragedy. Chlorpyrifos should be banned based on the agency’s own scientific conclusion, and the law.” Close Section Read More

Lance Cheung / USDA A father and son in a cotton field in El Campo, Texas. Chlorpyrifos is widely used on cotton. The EPA has acknowledged its legal obligation to protect children from pesticide drift.