To: Secretary Thomas 'Tom' James Vilsack and President Donald Trump
Demand Toxic Pesticide Protections!
I am calling on you to do the right thing and urge the Obama Administration to strengthen the Worker Protection Standard. This Standard is a set of rules established by the Environmental Protection Agency that are supposed to ensure the safety of agricultural workers who apply pesticides, or are exposed to these chemicals in the fields. However, these critical rules have not been updated or revised for more than 20 years, despite overwhelming evidence of their inadequacy.
The nation's 12 million farmworkers form the backbone of the U.S. agricultural economy and many are regularly exposed to pesticides. The federal government estimates that there are 10,000-20,000 acute pesticide poisonings among workers in the agricultural industry annually, a figure that likely understates the actual number of acute poisonings since many affected farmworkers may not seek care from a physician.
This is a travesty that the Administration must address!
Why is this important?
Why don't The bugs bite your apples?
It’s a funny question with a serious answer—Americans want inexpensive, perfect-looking fruit and vegetables, and pesticides do the trick. But those good looks come at the expense of farmworkers who wade through fields soaked with toxic pesticides to pick what we eat.
Each year, 10,000 to 20,000 farmworkers and their families contract acute pesticide poisoning, according to the federal government. They suffer stinging eyes, rashes, blisters, nausea, headaches and even death. Long-term impacts include infertility, birth defects, endocrine disruption, neurological disorders and cancer.
You can help end this travesty by joining with us in demanding stronger worker protections.
Our target is the weak and outdated Worker Protection Standard, which is meant to safeguard farmworkers but hasn’t been revised for more than 20 years despite overwhelming evidence of its inadequacy.
Act with us in calling on the EPA to strengthen the Worker Protection Standard by:
-- Providing more frequent and more comprehensible pesticide safety training for farmworkers
-- Ensuring that workers receive information about specific pesticides used in their work
-- Requiring safety precautions and protective equipment limiting farmworkers’ contact with pesticides
-- Requiring medical monitoring of workers who handle neurotoxic pesticides
Workers in other sectors of industry are protected from hazardous chemicals, but not farmworkers. Let’s restore their right to a healthy environment!