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March 29, 2002
Public Information and Records
Integrity Branch (PIRIB)
Information Resources and Services Division (7502C)
Office of Pesticide Programs
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20640
Docket
Control Number OPP-34239B B Revised Lindane Risk Assessments
The National Pediculosis Association (NPA) supports the
comments submitted to the EPA docket by the Tri-TAC Chair David Williams, state
of California on March 29, 2002.
It is the NPA’s mission to protect children from the
misuse and abuse of pesticides used for treating them for head lice and scabies
and it is accepted knowledge that normal use of these pesticidal treatments is
misuse. Lindane may be regarded as
a highly regulated pesticide, but its use by parents on their children and
themselves is anything but controlled. We
first appealed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a ban of lindane in
1983 for these reasons.
It is predictable that inordinate amounts of lindane will
be purchased and applied to children’s scalps and skin both in the home, the
hospital and other institutional settings.
Lindane is not 100% effective against pediculosis and
scabies, contributing to organism resistance and chronic human infestations.
Lindane applied to the scalps and skin of children and
families puts them at substantial risk of its harmful effects even before
consideration of additional exposures after it has been re-routed via the sewer
system back to a child’s water, air and food.
We find that risk assessment for lindane insufficiently
considers the children, the population most vulnerable to pesticides in general.
Nor do assessments fully consider the cumulative and unpredictable
combined effects with numerous other potentially harmful pesticides that are in
their lives but cannot be measured or prevented.
U.S. Government agencies must resolve to work cooperatively
with all available resources to protect the public from the ill effects of
lindane and the chemical agents used to produce it. California’s unique ability to directly associate and
measure lindane levels in water resulting from its use as a pharmaceutical is a
phenomenal scientific opportunity on which to build. Moreover, the positive documented impact of education and
prevention strategies utilized by the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County
and the National Pediculosis Association’s Lindane Reduction Project,
demonstrates that success in protecting human health and our environments from
lindane can be cost-effective, immediate and far reaching.
In the U.S. cancer kills more children under the age of 15
than any other disease, including AIDS. It
is estimated that 8,000 new cases of childhood cancer will be diagnosed in the
US each year. Acute leukemia, a
cancer already associated with lindane, accounts for the highest percentage.
Twenty three million children under the age of 18 suffer from learning
disabilities as reported by the Learning Disabilities Association of America. Behavioral disorders such as hyperactivity and Attention
Deficit Disorder are considered signs of low-level chemical exposure and now
affect one out of every six U.S. children.
We can’t remove every potentially harmful chemical
exposure from a child’s life, making it imperative that we remove those that
we can.
Obviating lindane as a pharmaceutical in the EPA’s risk
assessment puts the EPA in a position of denying the most attainable protection
to the most vulnerable population, … from one of the most toxic pesticides of
them all.
Sincerely,
Deborah Z. Altschuler
President
National Pediculosis Association
50 Kearney Road
Needham, MA 02494
781-449-6487
npa@headlice.org
Submitted electronically to EPA 3-29-02
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