EPA declines special review of 2,4-D

After 18 months of study, the Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to conduct a special review of the carcinogenic potential of the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). The EPA decision is the result of a consensus of EPA scientists, its special pesticide scientific advisory panel, and national experts on epidemiology. The agency will require manufacturers of the herbicide to perform additional animals tests but believes that continued use will not pose any significant hazards to human health or the environment. EPA began its consideration after the National Cancer Institute published in 1986 the results of an epidemiology study of Kansas farmers. The study concluded that those who were exposed to 2,4-D more than 20 days per year had a sixfold increase in risk of acquiring non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a lymph system cancer. The study seemed to confirm earlier Swedish data linking phenoxy herbicides to cancer. But the agency says a number of other epidemiological studies ...