Talk:Lindane
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New York Bill to ban Lindane
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 Bill Summary - A04162 Back | New York State Bill Search | Assembly Home See Bill Text
A04162 Summary: BILL NO A04162A
SAME AS Same as S 5619
SPONSOR Weisenberg
COSPNSR Dinowitz, Ortiz, Perry, Espaillat, Arroyo, Gottfried
MLTSPNSR Acampora, Alfano, Benjamin, Boyland, Brennan, Brodsky, Clark, Cohen A
Colton, Englebright, Gordon, Greene, John, Koon, Lafayette, Lifton,
Lupardo, Mayersohn, McEneny, O`Donnell, Peralta, Pheffer, Robinson,
Tedisco
Add S2507, Pub Health L
Bans the sale, use, and prescription of any product containing hexachlorocyclohexane, commonly known as Lindane, and its isomers.
A04162 Actions: BILL NO A04162A
02/09/2005 referred to health 05/10/2005 defeated in health 05/31/2005 amend and recommit to health 05/31/2005 print number 4162a 06/16/2005 reported referred to codes
A04162 Votes:
A04162 Memo:
BILL NUMBER: A4162A
TITLE OF BILL : An act to amend the public health law, in relation
to banning the sale, use, and prescription of any product containing the substance commonly known as Lindane
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL : To restrict the sale, use, and
prescription of any product containing hexachlorocyclohexane, commonly known as Lindane, and its isomers, except as specified in Section 2507.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS : Section 1. Adds a new section, 2507
of the public health law.
Section 2. Sets the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION : Lindane is a synthetic pesticide used in agriculture
and as a treatment for head lice and scabies. Consumers use Lindane most often for the treatment of head-lice and scabies in the form of creams, lotions, and shampoos (Kwell). However, extended exposure to Lindane causes the absorption of its chemicals into the skin, the digestive system, and the respiratory tract, resulting in seizures and, in rare cases, death. Medical and toxicology studies have labeled Lindane a possible carcinogen. The World Health Organization (WHO), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Health and Human Services, confirm these findings, reporting a six fold increase in the number of farmers who have developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma after exposure to Lindane. Recent case studies report high rates of childhood brain cancer due to treatment with Lindane shampoo. Furthermore, studies have proven that Lindane causes a potentially fatal or lifetime condition called aplastic anemia, the deficiency of essential nutrients in the blood and a precursor to leukemia. Adverse effects have resulted from recommended dosage of this product.
Lindane is exceptionally toxic to the environment. The EPA categorizes Lindane as a persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic pollutant, meaning it remains in the environment for a protracted period of time. After its use, patients rinse lindane shampoos and creams down the sink or shower drains. Since waste water treatment plants do not remove Lindane successfully, it passes through groundwater streams, rivers, lakes, and the ocean. In California, one dose of Lindane was shown to pollute six million gallons of water. Even a small amount of Lindane when ingested is lethal. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency has severely restricted the agricultural use of Lindane.
In 2003, The Food and Drug Administration repackaged Lindane and included a more detailed and restrictive warning. They classify Lindane as a second choice treatment to more efficient and less toxic alternatives and state that children, the elderly, and pregnant women should not use this product due to its toxicity. Hence, Lindane containing treatments continue to be available by prescription. Although the National Pediculosis Association reports that Lindane products have caused over 500 cases of adverse effects, over one million people receive prescriptions for Lindane each year in the United States.
There is no viable reason to keep Lindane on the consumer market in light of its dangers. It is a deadly poison that safer alternatives can easily replace. Eighteen countries world-wide have banned the use and distribution of Lindane. In addition, since the FDA has restricted the use of Lindane concerning children, the group most likely to become infested with head lice, there is no high demand for this product.
Although Lindane is no longer commercially produced in the United States, it remains commercially available in all states except California. Legislation is necessary to ensure that this dangerous product is removed completely from the consumer market.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY : New bill.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS : None.
EFFECTIVE DATE : This act shall take effect 180 days after it shall
become law.
[edit] citation that was needed is as follows
Harris GL, et al, Pesticide application and deposition - their importance to pesticide leaching to surface water, Proceedings of the Brighton Crop Protection Conference: Pests and diseases - 1992, Volume 2, 477-486, BCPC 1992.
[edit] EPA bans Lindane
EPA Bans Lindane for Use as Pesticide The toxic chemical has been used on crop seeds since the '50s. The FDA still allows medical use Aug 2, 2006 | Marla Cone | Los Angeles Times A highly toxic pesticide that is one of the last such holdouts from the 1950s is being banned in the United States after a lengthy review by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA decided not to renew the registration of lindane, an insecticide used to treat seeds for wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley and sorghum crops. In response, the manufacturers agreed to cease sales in the United States, EPA officials said Tuesday.
Lindane is a chlorinated pesticide, much like DDT and similar compounds that were outlawed in most of the world in the 1970s; it is already banned in 52 countries. It does not break down in the environment, so it builds up in food chains and in human bodies, and scatters globally via the oceans and air, reaching even people and animals in the Arctic.
For years, environmentalists have sought a ban in the U.S., especially since Mexico and Canada have already acted. The United Nations was considering adding lindane to a global treaty phasing out chemicals considered the world's most hazardous.
Kristin Shafer of Pesticide Action Network North America, an activist group based in San Francisco, said Tuesday that she was "pleased EPA has finally done the right thing."
Jim Jones, director of the EPA's pesticide program, said the agency weighed lindane's toxicity and its persistence in the environment against its "very few benefits for users," considering the fact that safer alternatives for treating corn, wheat and other grain seeds were available.
"We're making a decision today that I feel very good about," he said. "Most of the uses were deleted a long time ago, and the EPA has taken a number of actions culminating in this one today, where the remaining uses are being voluntarily canceled."
The EPA has acknowledged the hazards of lindane for several years, calling it "quite toxic to humans." It is classified as a possible carcinogen, and in high doses it damages the human nervous system, liver and immune system.
The only remaining U.S. use of lindane is for prescription shampoos and lotion treatments for head lice and scabies, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, not the EPA. Lindane prescriptions have been banned in California since 2002, and most U.S. doctors no longer prescribe them.
"It's good to the see the U.S. finally stepping up to the plate" on farm use, said Ann Heil, a supervising engineer at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts who has researched lindane and lobbied the Legislature for the state ban on lindane prescriptions. But, she said, "it is baffling why the federal government has now banned uses of lindane for farming, but still allows it to be put on children's heads."
The decision to end lindane's use as an agricultural pesticide is the culmination of a 10-year review of the more than 200 active ingredients in pesticides that was ordered by Congress in 1996 under the Food Quality Protection Act.
The law transformed the EPA's safety standards for evaluating pesticide risks, especially to children, and has led to changes in the allowable uses of many chemicals.
"Virtually every chemical that went through that process had some meaningful changes in the way they could be used," Jones said. Seventeen popular chemicals have been banned since the review began.
Lindane has been used on U.S. crops since 1950. The EPA heavily restricted it in 1983, limiting its use to grain seeds to prevent pests from eating the plants. It is banned in the European Union, Japan and several other Asian countries, South Africa, and much of Latin and South America.
If the companies had not voluntarily agreed to cease U.S. distribution, the process of the EPA canceling its registration could have dragged on for years, Jones said. Instead, it will become effective in about two months. Farmers can still legally use lindane products already in stock.
Up to 230,000 pounds of lindane have been used yearly in the United States, mostly to treat corn and wheat seed. California growers already were scaling back its use, reporting application of only 775 pounds in 2004, compared with nearly 5,000 pounds four years earlier, according to state records.
[edit] Copyright violation
I think that the The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Public Health Advisory at http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/lindane/lindanePHA.htm was prepared by the federal government and falls under the public domain. See Wikipedia:Public domain resources#US Government. WODUP 04:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
