By Jeff Stier, Esq.
Posted: Wednesday, May 10, 2000

LETTER
Publication Date: May 10, 1999

To the editor:

Americans who value our abundant, affordable, safe and healthy supply of fruits and vegetables should welcome the resignation of the seven special interest groups who had been serving on the EPA's Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee (7 Groups Quit Food Panel, April 28).

These groups brought nothing to the table except an anti-technology bias. Their call for a ban on some of the most useful pesticides ignores the fact that these products, when used as approved under current regulations, have never posed even a remote risk to humans. In fact, if these safe pesticides were banned, the quality of produce would decline and prices would rise, leading to overall lower consumption-- a result that would in fact be unhealthy.