Portal latinoamericano de toxicología
US: The EPA forces d-Con out of production because of its dangerous ingredient, brodifacoum
2 June, 2014
EPA Stops Popular Rat Poison Manufacturer. By Samantha Olson. medicaldaily.com. June 01, 2014. Having a rodent problem is one thing, but having an unsafe poison around children, pets, and wildlife is a completely different type of danger altogether. After years battling with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the major rat poison manufacturer, Reckitt Benckiser has agreed to phase d-Con out of production next month. "This is a significant victory for environmental protection and corporate responsibility," Jonathan Evans of the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told LA Times. "While the fight isn’t over until all of these hazardous products are off the market, this decision keeps the worst of the worst products from residential consumers."
The U.K.-based manufacturer is one of 17 rat poison producers, however Reckitt Benckiser is the only one that did not alter its packaging and chemicals to comply with the new federal safety standards. Their poison has the power to kill rodents within days of a single feeding by thinning out their blood and causing uncontrollable bleeding.
"Millions of households use mouse and rat poison products each year. Canceling these products will help prevent risks to children, pets and wildlife," Jim Jones, assistant administrator of the EPA told the Wall Street Journal.
On Friday the company made the official announcement to stop making the bait pellets by the end of this year and reintroduce a new formula in 2015 that has to pass approval by the EPA for household use. The d-Con manufacturer originally resisted compliance because they felt their formula was the least harmful and yielded the best results and that other poisons were less effective at killing mice and rats.
"California is a huge market," Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest environmental law firm in San Francisco told the Wall Street Journal. With the July 1 deadline looming, he added, "I suspect [Reckitt Benckiser] took a look around and saw the writing on the wall."
D-Con pellets are usually placed in open trays to attract the rodents, which make it more accessible to non-intended parties. D-Con pellets have been involved in many thousands of unintentional digestions by babies and young children over the years. Its success can be attributed to its active ingredient brodifacoum, a relative of warfarin, which causes fatal hemorrhaging ad is still used to prevent blood clots today.
Brodifacoum doesn’t cause immediate death, which is why mice and rats aren’t able to identify the bait traps as a danger and as a result, the rodents keep going back for more.
Vitamin K can be used to treat certain cases of accidental ingestions fairly easily when administered by a doctor. Vitamin K is considered an antidote to poisons like d-Con that are anti-coagulants, said David Gummin, medical director of the Wisconsin Poison Center in Milwaukee.
D-Con said its 2015 formula "will continue to utilize effective ingredients for which an antidote is readily available and which do not contain a neurotoxin" and the baits will be approved for consumer use in every state.________________________________________________________________________________________
"Millions of households use mouse and rat poison products each year. Canceling these products will help prevent risks to children, pets and wildlife," Jim Jones, assistant administrator of the EPA told the Wall Street Journal.
On Friday the company made the official announcement to stop making the bait pellets by the end of this year and reintroduce a new formula in 2015 that has to pass approval by the EPA for household use. The d-Con manufacturer originally resisted compliance because they felt their formula was the least harmful and yielded the best results and that other poisons were less effective at killing mice and rats.
"California is a huge market," Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest environmental law firm in San Francisco told the Wall Street Journal. With the July 1 deadline looming, he added, "I suspect [Reckitt Benckiser] took a look around and saw the writing on the wall."
D-Con pellets are usually placed in open trays to attract the rodents, which make it more accessible to non-intended parties. D-Con pellets have been involved in many thousands of unintentional digestions by babies and young children over the years. Its success can be attributed to its active ingredient brodifacoum, a relative of warfarin, which causes fatal hemorrhaging ad is still used to prevent blood clots today.
Brodifacoum doesn’t cause immediate death, which is why mice and rats aren’t able to identify the bait traps as a danger and as a result, the rodents keep going back for more.
Vitamin K can be used to treat certain cases of accidental ingestions fairly easily when administered by a doctor. Vitamin K is considered an antidote to poisons like d-Con that are anti-coagulants, said David Gummin, medical director of the Wisconsin Poison Center in Milwaukee.
D-Con said its 2015 formula "will continue to utilize effective ingredients for which an antidote is readily available and which do not contain a neurotoxin" and the baits will be approved for consumer use in every state.________________________________________________________________________________________
Read also related: Legal Action Taken to Reduce Wildlife Poisoning. biologicaldiversity.org. May 28, 2014.Conservationists Intervene in Lawsuit by d-CON Producers Fighting California’s Controls on Super-toxic Rat Poisons.
SAN DIEGO— A coalition of wildlife advocates intervened today in a lawsuit by the maker of the rat poison d-CON challenging a California effort to limit the sale of super-toxic rat poisons to only licensed specialists. The state’s new restriction on retail sales of the more deadly and longer-lingering rodenticides, due to take effect July 1, seeks to protect children, wildlife and pets from accidental poisoning. Poisonings have been documented in at least 25 species of wild animals in California, including mountain lions, hawks, endangered San Joaquin kit foxes and northern spotted owls, as well as numerous cats and dogs.
“Reckit Benckiser is a multinational corporation motivated by sheer profit,” said Tamara Zakim, an associate attorney with Earthjustice. “In the face of an overwhelming tide of science that demands protections for birds and mammals that are harmed and killed by the pervasive and toxic effects of d-CON, California has taken important steps to protect wildlife. And yet Reckitt is fighting back in the name of business as usual.”
The regulations from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation target products sold to the general public in retail outlets and limits super-toxic rodenticide use beyond 50 feet of manmade structures. These super-toxic poisons — called second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides — will still be available for widespread use by licensed commercial and agricultural pest-control operators.
“It’s disgusting that d-CON continues to challenge common-sense controls for protecting our children, pets and wildlife,” said Jonathan Evans, toxics and endangered species campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We need to put public safety before corporate profits.”
Reckitt Benckiser is the parent company of d-CON and is also currently challenging a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit the sale of super-toxic rat poison without tamper-resistant packaging to avoid unintentional poisonings of children.
“So much for corporate responsibility,” said Jason Rylander, senior attorney with Defenders of Wildlife. “Now that both EPA and the state of California have moved to curb the use of d-Con and other risky poisons, Reckitt Benckiser needs to do the right thing and stop fighting these common-sense measures to stop accidental poisonings.”
“We commend the state of California for taking action to protect people and animals,” said Cynthia Palmer, pesticides program manager at American Bird Conservancy. “It is time for the d-CON company to follow the rules like every other rat-poison manufacturer.”
“The lingering effects of the rat poison wreak havoc up the food chain, impacting endangered species such as the San Joaquin kit fox, and Reckitt Benckiser’s intransigence is calculated to make its environmentally devastating product linger on the market," said Andrew Christie, director of the Sierra Club’s Santa Lucia Chapter.
Earthjustice is representing wildlife advocates at the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the American Bird Conservancy in the lawsuit where the groups intervened to join the state of California in fighting Reckitt Benckiser’s attempt to roll back safeguards for rodenticides. Earlier this month Reckitt Benckiser failed to obtain a preliminary injunction to halt the new rule, which will go into effect on July 1.
Background Anticoagulant rodenticides interfere with blood clotting, resulting in uncontrollable bleeding that leads to death. Second-generation anticoagulants — including the compounds brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum — are especially hazardous and persist for a long time in body tissues. These slow-acting poisons are often eaten for several days by rats and mice, causing the toxins to accumulate at many times the lethal dose in their tissues, poisoning predators that eat the weakened rodents.
Studies have documented second-generation anticoagulants in more than 70 percent of wildlife tested, including eagles, hawks, owls, foxes, bobcats and mountain lions. Over a 10-year period rodenticides caused, on average, more than 160 severe poisonings of pets annually. According to data from the EPA, each year up to 10,000 children are accidentally exposed to rat poison in their homes.
Along with its recent challenge of the EPA’s proposal to require tamper-resistant packaging to protect children, Reckitt Benckiser has repeatedly fought attempts by regulators to limit unintentional poisonings. The EPA initially proposed protections for children and pets from rat poisons as early as 1998, but withdrew that proposal in the face of industry opposition. Ten years later, in 2008, the EPA moved forward with restrictions that have been repeatedly challenged by Reckitt Benckiser.
Safe alternatives to rat poison can be used to address rodent outbreaks in homes and rural areas. Effective measures include rodent-proofing of homes and farms by sealing cracks and crevices and eliminating food sources; providing owl boxes to encourage natural predation; and utilizing traps that don’t involve these highly toxic chemicals. For more information visit SafeRodentControl.org.
Click here to learn more about the dangers of rodenticides.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 775,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Earthjustice is a nonprofit environmental law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations and communities.
Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With more than 1 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard our wildlife heritage for generations to come. For more information
American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. ABC acts by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats, while building capacity in the bird conservation movement.
The Sierra Club’s mission is “to explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; to practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems and resources; and to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environments.”
SAN DIEGO— A coalition of wildlife advocates intervened today in a lawsuit by the maker of the rat poison d-CON challenging a California effort to limit the sale of super-toxic rat poisons to only licensed specialists. The state’s new restriction on retail sales of the more deadly and longer-lingering rodenticides, due to take effect July 1, seeks to protect children, wildlife and pets from accidental poisoning. Poisonings have been documented in at least 25 species of wild animals in California, including mountain lions, hawks, endangered San Joaquin kit foxes and northern spotted owls, as well as numerous cats and dogs.
“Reckit Benckiser is a multinational corporation motivated by sheer profit,” said Tamara Zakim, an associate attorney with Earthjustice. “In the face of an overwhelming tide of science that demands protections for birds and mammals that are harmed and killed by the pervasive and toxic effects of d-CON, California has taken important steps to protect wildlife. And yet Reckitt is fighting back in the name of business as usual.”
The regulations from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation target products sold to the general public in retail outlets and limits super-toxic rodenticide use beyond 50 feet of manmade structures. These super-toxic poisons — called second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides — will still be available for widespread use by licensed commercial and agricultural pest-control operators.
“It’s disgusting that d-CON continues to challenge common-sense controls for protecting our children, pets and wildlife,” said Jonathan Evans, toxics and endangered species campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We need to put public safety before corporate profits.”
Reckitt Benckiser is the parent company of d-CON and is also currently challenging a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit the sale of super-toxic rat poison without tamper-resistant packaging to avoid unintentional poisonings of children.
“So much for corporate responsibility,” said Jason Rylander, senior attorney with Defenders of Wildlife. “Now that both EPA and the state of California have moved to curb the use of d-Con and other risky poisons, Reckitt Benckiser needs to do the right thing and stop fighting these common-sense measures to stop accidental poisonings.”
“We commend the state of California for taking action to protect people and animals,” said Cynthia Palmer, pesticides program manager at American Bird Conservancy. “It is time for the d-CON company to follow the rules like every other rat-poison manufacturer.”
“The lingering effects of the rat poison wreak havoc up the food chain, impacting endangered species such as the San Joaquin kit fox, and Reckitt Benckiser’s intransigence is calculated to make its environmentally devastating product linger on the market," said Andrew Christie, director of the Sierra Club’s Santa Lucia Chapter.
Earthjustice is representing wildlife advocates at the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the American Bird Conservancy in the lawsuit where the groups intervened to join the state of California in fighting Reckitt Benckiser’s attempt to roll back safeguards for rodenticides. Earlier this month Reckitt Benckiser failed to obtain a preliminary injunction to halt the new rule, which will go into effect on July 1.
Background Anticoagulant rodenticides interfere with blood clotting, resulting in uncontrollable bleeding that leads to death. Second-generation anticoagulants — including the compounds brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum — are especially hazardous and persist for a long time in body tissues. These slow-acting poisons are often eaten for several days by rats and mice, causing the toxins to accumulate at many times the lethal dose in their tissues, poisoning predators that eat the weakened rodents.
Studies have documented second-generation anticoagulants in more than 70 percent of wildlife tested, including eagles, hawks, owls, foxes, bobcats and mountain lions. Over a 10-year period rodenticides caused, on average, more than 160 severe poisonings of pets annually. According to data from the EPA, each year up to 10,000 children are accidentally exposed to rat poison in their homes.
Along with its recent challenge of the EPA’s proposal to require tamper-resistant packaging to protect children, Reckitt Benckiser has repeatedly fought attempts by regulators to limit unintentional poisonings. The EPA initially proposed protections for children and pets from rat poisons as early as 1998, but withdrew that proposal in the face of industry opposition. Ten years later, in 2008, the EPA moved forward with restrictions that have been repeatedly challenged by Reckitt Benckiser.
Safe alternatives to rat poison can be used to address rodent outbreaks in homes and rural areas. Effective measures include rodent-proofing of homes and farms by sealing cracks and crevices and eliminating food sources; providing owl boxes to encourage natural predation; and utilizing traps that don’t involve these highly toxic chemicals. For more information visit SafeRodentControl.org.
Click here to learn more about the dangers of rodenticides.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 775,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Earthjustice is a nonprofit environmental law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations and communities.
Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With more than 1 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard our wildlife heritage for generations to come. For more information
American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. ABC acts by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats, while building capacity in the bird conservation movement.
The Sierra Club’s mission is “to explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; to practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems and resources; and to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environments.”