Fumigants Take Center Stage in California

I wrote previously about the strange story of methyl iodide, a chemical purposely used by researchers to cause cancer in labs, being proposed for use as a fumigant for strawberry production in California.  The New York Times recently covered a  legislative hearing by the California Senate Food and Agriculture Committee in which the members of an external scientific review panel lambasted California regulators for approving the chemical as a fumigant.   Dr. John Froines of UCLA’s  Sustainable Technology and Policy Program described the chemical as “ one of the most toxic chemicals on earth.”  Dr. Theodore A. Slotkin of Duke University Medical Center warned that the approval made children of the state of California  into “test animals.”   And so it goes . . .

California OLD, fumigants, methyl iodide, pesticides