CalEPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), may soon require products containing chlorpyrifos and methyl bromide to carry cancer warning labels under Prop. 65. An OEHHA committee will discuss the chemicals at its November meeting.
U.S. EPA began phasing out the use of the methyl bromide in 2017. A decade earlier, the California attorney general had sued USDA over the fumigant’s ozone-harming emissions.
The Newsom administration is banning use of all but the granular form of chlorpyrifos by the end of the year. Attorneys for farmworkers last week filed the first of what they threaten to be dozens of lawsuits over chlorpyrifos exposure, and a Prop. 65 warning would likely play a role in those arguments. Attorneys have often cited the state’s listing of glyphosate under Prop. 65 in many successful lawsuits against the manufacturer. Attorney General Xavier Becerra is also challenging a recent federal court decision that bars the Prop. 65 warning for glyphosate-based herbicides.
OEHHA has been considering a Prop. 65 warning for acrylamide as well. The chemical forms in some carbohydrate-rich foods during frying, roasting and baking, which includes roasted almonds. The Western Agricultural Processors Association argued in a comment letter that the decision is based on lawsuit settlements, with little to no data to support the level of acrylamide proposed for the listing.
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