The presence of these pesticides in our participants’ bodies demonstrates the extreme flaws in today’s system for regulating pesticides. People cannot fulfill the most basic of needs—nutrition—without risking harm from pesticides that can damage brain function and cause cancer. Although the EPA requires manufacturers to test pesticides for harmful effects, national rules do not prevent continued use of pesticides that test positive for cancer or harm to brain development.

The federal pesticide law, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, makes no guarantee that pesticides allowed for use will not cause harm to people and other living things. Rather, the law protects a pesticide’s uses unless the chemical poses “unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide.” That is, as long as a pesticide’s perceived economic benefits outweigh its health risks, the law allows for its use.

The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 aimed to improve this standard somewhat for pesticides used on food, but EPA has yet to implement many of the law’s important provisions. For example, the law requires EPA to consider the cumulative effects of different pesticides that have the same health effect. A decade after its passage, EPA is still in the process of determining how to implement this requirement.

Under the same act, EPA has developed agreements with the pesticide industry to nearly eliminate home use of two important organophosphates, chlorpyrifos and diazinon. As noted above and as demonstrated in our study, however, the widespread agricultural use of organophosphates, including of these two pesticides, means that U.S. residents continue to be regularly exposed to the chemicals. The EPA has also placed some restrictions on carbaryl, but its use continues in the home and garden setting and in agriculture. And EPA continues to allow other carbamate pesticides, chemical relatives of carbaryl, which have similar effects on the nervous system.

To eliminate exposure to these pesticides, EPA should phase out the use of all organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. The Washington State Department of Agriculture can also take action to phase out these and other toxic pesticides. At the state level, the legislature should continue to provide funding to Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources to develop alternatives for both conventional and organic growers. Cities and counties can eliminate their own use of toxic pesticides on public property, and educate residents about replacing pesticides with healthier practices in the home and garden. Laurie Valeriano’s family has a pesticide-free park to use because of a community effort to make it one of Seattle’s 22 pesticide-free parks. This effort, together with a campaign led by local residents and organizations, ultimately led the City of Seattle to establish a precedent-setting policy ending its use of the most toxic pesticides, which other cities and counties can emulate.