Children's Health Defense By
AgLogic Chemical for the second time has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve aldicarb, a highly toxic insecticide — this time to fight greening disease threatening Florida citrus fruits.
North Carolina-based AgLogic is the only formulator of aldicarb, a neurotoxin classified as “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organization and banned in more than 125 countries.
The EPA and manufacturing giant Bayer agreed in 2010 to stop using aldicarb in the U.S. after the EPA found the chemical’s application on citrus plants “posed unacceptable dietary risks to infants and young children.”
In 2011, the company applied for — and received — approval for using the insecticide on cotton, dry beans, peanuts, soybeans, sugar beets and sweet potatoes.
When AgLogic received approval for using aldicarb on other crops in 2011, Karen McCormack, a retired employee of the EPA’s pesticide office, was perplexed. She told the Center for Biological Diversity in 2020 that it was “deeply disappointing” to watch the EPA renege on its agreement to ban “this highly toxic and persistent pesticide…
