The EPA Banned a Pesticide That Is Dangerous for Fetuses. What to Know

For the first time in nearly four decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday issued an emergency order to stop the use of a pesticide linked to serious health risks for fetuses.

The pesticide, dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate (DCPA or Dacthal), is currently undergoing review as part of a process where registered pesticides get reevaluated every 15 years to ensure that they don’t have any adverse effects on human health or the environment. 

The emergency order comes after several years of “unprecedented efforts” by the Biden-Harris Administration to get the sole manufacturer of DCPA, AMVAC Chemical Corporation, to submit data on the pesticide and its health risks, the EPA said in a press release.

Here’s everything you need to know. 

How is the pesticide used?

DCPA is used to control weeds on crops like broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and onions. Part of the risk of the pesticide is that pregnant people may be unknowingly exposed to it, according to the EPA.

How is it harmful?

The EPA said that when pregnant people are exposed to DCPA, their fetuses could experience changes to their thyroid hormone levels. Those changes are associated with low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life—some of which could be irreversible.

“DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately,” Michal Freedhoff, the EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in the agency’s press release. “It’s EPA’s job to protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals. In this case, pregnant women who may never even know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems.”

The EPA found that even when people use personal protective equipment, there are still health risks associated with DCPA. The EPA estimated that pregnant people handling DCPA products could be subjected to exposures four to 20 times greater than what the agency has estimated is safe for fetuses.

Alexis Temkin, a senior toxicologist with the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit advocacy organization, says she was “relieved” by the decision, but that this move “should have happened a long time ago” because there had been previous evidence that DCPA posed health risks.

DCPA has been banned for use on crops in the European Union since 2009.

The primary exposure concern to DCPA is for farmworkers, especially pregnant people, according to Temkin, while the spray drift of the pesticide can also cause nearby bystanders to be exposed to it. Temkin says there may be some risk of exposure for people purchasing produce that has been treated with DCPA, and suggests that anyone who’s worried about that could try purchasing organic produce, which likely would have been less exposed to DCPA.

What happened before this order was issued?

The EPA said that in 2013 it requested data from AMVAC on the pesticide and its health risks, including for a comprehensive study on the pesticide’s effects on thyroid development in adults and children before and after birth. While AMVAC submitted data to the EPA between 2013 and 2021, the agency said much of it was “considered insufficient,” and some of the agency’s requests—including the thyroid study—weren’t submitted at all. AMVAC eventually submitted the thyroid study in 2022.

What happens next?

The emergency order is effective immediately because the EPA determined that continuing to sell and use DCPA in the time it would take to go through the usual process to suspend the pesticide “poses an imminent hazard to unborn babies,” according to the press release. The agency said it will also issue a notice of intent to cancel DCPA products within the next three months.

The order means that no one will be allowed to sell, distribute, or use any pesticide product containing DCPA. The emergency order doesn’t call for a recall of the crops that have been treated by the pesticide, Temkin says.

But Temkin says she’s not sure how the order will be enforced. “This emergency suspension has not happened in 40 years. I have not seen this in my lifetime, in my career,” she says. “I think actually knowing how the process will unfold is definitely a question for EPA and ensuring that it unfolds the right way—that it is effective immediately and people are following the guideline.”

When asked to clarify how the order will be enforced, the EPA referred TIME back to the text of the emergency order.