Risk tradeoffs in pesticide regulation: Substitutes and income effects

摘要

Efforts to reduce pesticide-related risks to consumers and farmworkers often neglect the possibility that measures to reduce the "target risk" may introduce or enhance "countervailing risks." These may arise from substitute pesticides or pest-control practices, from increased levels of pests or toxic natural pesticides in plants, from increased costs and decreased consumption of health enhancing fruits and vegetables, or from direct income effects on consumers and farmers. We conduct a risk-tradeoff analysis of a potential ban on the use of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides in US agriculture. Although a net risk cannot be estimated, we find several countervailing risks that may be significant, including acute toxicity to farmworkers from substitute pesticides, cancer and noncancer risks from substitute pesticides, and mortality induced by changes in income. We also identify key factors complicating comprehensive analysis of risk/risk tradeoffs for pesticides including data gaps and shortcomings of current risk-assessment theories and methods.