Who Determines What Will Harm Us?
By Carolyn Day
The problems with pesticides have been widely recognized for some time. Since Rachel Carson’s work on DDT in her 1960s book Silent Spring, public and governmental concern over pesticides’ effects on people and the environment has increased, resulting in stricter government regulation.
Pesticide regulation within the United States is one of the responsibilities of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the corresponding state EPAs and pesticide regulatory agencies. These agencies control the public usage of pesticides by determining what pesticides are available and how pesticides can be used. Such standards are set using a risk assessment, which involves investigating all of the known health effects of a pesticide.
“[Risk assessment] is putting together all available data and determining the safe levels of exposure, and then that goes on to mitigation by [California Department of Pesticide Regulation] management and worker health and safety,” explains Marilyn Silva, a toxicologist at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CA DPR).
Marilyn possess a Master’s degree in Veterinary Anatomy from the University of California, Davis, and a doctorate from University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on developing risk assessments on pesticides. “I am out in the trenches doing the basic science and the writing and all that,” she explains.
A risk assessment is a multi-step process that aims to identify the potential negative health effects of a pesticide. The US EPA, state EPAs, and pesticide regulation agencies perform risk assessments to establish the potential for pesticides to pose a risk to public health, and to characterize the nature and severity of the resulting health effects. In California, the Department of Pesticide Regulation (CA DPR) performs these pesticide risk assessments. Agencies such as the California EPA then take the completed risk assessment, develop a scientifically based opinion on a pesticide, and provide evidence for its regulation.
Risk assessments involve two important elements: systematic review of available scientific literature and an exposure assessment. The other critical portion comes from the literature reviewed by Marilyn and her team. “We use data that have to be submitted by the pesticide registrar, whoever wants to register a pesticide has to have a complete database. We look at that as well as all of the open literature from government, US EPA, [and] from academics.”
The academic literature reports findings from pesticide studies across disciplines. These findings may focus on a pesticide's impact on a certain organ system or association with a certain health condition. By reviewing all of these reports in the available literature, Marilyn and her team can get a sense of the pesticide's effect on overall health.
Once potential hazards have been identified in the literature, the exposure assessment team is responsible for observing the public’s risk for exposure outside of controlled conditions. They are “really, really important,” Marilyn explains, because they “see what people are being exposed to, based on data we get from environmental monitoring and based on modeling data.” The data provided by the exposure team forms a critical portion of the risk assessment when it comes to how a pesticide could affect people. Acceptable exposure levels range depending on the age of the person exposed, the organ system- extrapolated from using animal models-, and exposure route.
Although the literature is crucial for developing a risk assessment, Marilyn interacts with academics in many more ways than simply reviewing their literature. Marilyn is a member of the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee (EHSC CSTAC) serving as a voice for government agencies. In this setting, Marilyn is making and maintaining new connections with the other members as well as getting to hear from the perspectives community groups, lawyers, and other researchers. She sees the communication between the different groups represented within CSTAC as very important for emphasizing the bigger picture of promoting environmental health within the larger California community.
Through her connections from CSTAC, Marilyn is able to readily exchange ideas among other researchers in the development of risk assessments. “So we really interact with people like [scientists at UC Davis] as much as possible to exchange ideas. So the academics are really important to us. We publish our own papers and our own views on risk assessments but it’s pretty much regulatory information.”
Without the work of academic researchers, risk assessments would be very limited. The work of academics is an important portion of the information Marilyn and her team rely on to make their scientific judgments. Risk assessments are a culmination of academic and governmental research working to establish pesticide regulation and promote public health. But they also serve as a platform for exchanging scientific ideas and information between government scientists and academic researchers. Through this platform, government scientists and academic researchers establish relationships and further the pursuit of a healthy public and environment.
Pesticide regulation within the United States is one of the responsibilities of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the corresponding state EPAs and pesticide regulatory agencies. These agencies control the public usage of pesticides by determining what pesticides are available and how pesticides can be used. Such standards are set using a risk assessment, which involves investigating all of the known health effects of a pesticide.
“[Risk assessment] is putting together all available data and determining the safe levels of exposure, and then that goes on to mitigation by [California Department of Pesticide Regulation] management and worker health and safety,” explains Marilyn Silva, a toxicologist at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CA DPR).
Marilyn possess a Master’s degree in Veterinary Anatomy from the University of California, Davis, and a doctorate from University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on developing risk assessments on pesticides. “I am out in the trenches doing the basic science and the writing and all that,” she explains.
A risk assessment is a multi-step process that aims to identify the potential negative health effects of a pesticide. The US EPA, state EPAs, and pesticide regulation agencies perform risk assessments to establish the potential for pesticides to pose a risk to public health, and to characterize the nature and severity of the resulting health effects. In California, the Department of Pesticide Regulation (CA DPR) performs these pesticide risk assessments. Agencies such as the California EPA then take the completed risk assessment, develop a scientifically based opinion on a pesticide, and provide evidence for its regulation.
Risk assessments involve two important elements: systematic review of available scientific literature and an exposure assessment. The other critical portion comes from the literature reviewed by Marilyn and her team. “We use data that have to be submitted by the pesticide registrar, whoever wants to register a pesticide has to have a complete database. We look at that as well as all of the open literature from government, US EPA, [and] from academics.”
The academic literature reports findings from pesticide studies across disciplines. These findings may focus on a pesticide's impact on a certain organ system or association with a certain health condition. By reviewing all of these reports in the available literature, Marilyn and her team can get a sense of the pesticide's effect on overall health.
Once potential hazards have been identified in the literature, the exposure assessment team is responsible for observing the public’s risk for exposure outside of controlled conditions. They are “really, really important,” Marilyn explains, because they “see what people are being exposed to, based on data we get from environmental monitoring and based on modeling data.” The data provided by the exposure team forms a critical portion of the risk assessment when it comes to how a pesticide could affect people. Acceptable exposure levels range depending on the age of the person exposed, the organ system- extrapolated from using animal models-, and exposure route.
Although the literature is crucial for developing a risk assessment, Marilyn interacts with academics in many more ways than simply reviewing their literature. Marilyn is a member of the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee (EHSC CSTAC) serving as a voice for government agencies. In this setting, Marilyn is making and maintaining new connections with the other members as well as getting to hear from the perspectives community groups, lawyers, and other researchers. She sees the communication between the different groups represented within CSTAC as very important for emphasizing the bigger picture of promoting environmental health within the larger California community.
Through her connections from CSTAC, Marilyn is able to readily exchange ideas among other researchers in the development of risk assessments. “So we really interact with people like [scientists at UC Davis] as much as possible to exchange ideas. So the academics are really important to us. We publish our own papers and our own views on risk assessments but it’s pretty much regulatory information.”
Without the work of academic researchers, risk assessments would be very limited. The work of academics is an important portion of the information Marilyn and her team rely on to make their scientific judgments. Risk assessments are a culmination of academic and governmental research working to establish pesticide regulation and promote public health. But they also serve as a platform for exchanging scientific ideas and information between government scientists and academic researchers. Through this platform, government scientists and academic researchers establish relationships and further the pursuit of a healthy public and environment.