Pesticides Are FDA Regulated, Not Approved

Rebecca Bowen

Health

5th September 2021

Pesticides Are FDA Regulated, Not Approved

Regulation is a way of protecting the public (Getty Images).

The Claim

The FDA approves pesticides and approves for them to be in our food.

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Emerging story

Following FDA approval of the Pfizer COVID vaccine, vaccine-hesitant social media users began questioning the authority of an FDA approval. Claiming that the FDA also approves harmful pesticides, including allowing pesticides in our food. One post with 4,500 shares boasts, “Some of you have no idea what FDA approval really means…,” while another quips, “You know what else is FDA approved? Round up, a cancer-causing pesticide.”

A supporting image within the article body

Misbar’s Analysis

As with cigarettes, pesticides are not FDA approved, and social media users are confusing approval with regulation. The FDA only has the power to regulate pesticides as they pertain to contaminant levels on food intended for human and animal consumption.

FDA approval is an entirely different process and only applies to products intended to benefit people (like drugs, beauty aids, medical devices, etc.). In their consumer update published October of 2020, the FDA clarifies that approval is only used for items that have empirical and significant amounts of data showing they are effective and safe, and that the intended benefits surpass known risks.

Regulation of pesticides contained in food for human and animal consumption is the realm of operations for the FDA. Pesticide registration, not approval, is performed by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. The FDA monitors adherence to EPA standards for pesticides with their Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program. This is their best means of assuring that pesticides consumed fall within safe limits. Pesticides have neither FDA or EPA approval — that would mean condoning the ingestion of pesticides as beneficial to humans.

Social media users showed concern for adherence to standards and cited other instances of FDA failure to protect the public as their reason. A report titled “Baby Foods are Tainted With Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury,” completed by an oversight committee for the U.S. House of Representatives, details results of lab testing for dangerous heavy metals in baby food. With arsenic levels of rice being of particular concern, the FDA responded to accusations by saying that levels were still lower than in 2011.

Public understanding of the approval, monitoring, and regulation duties of various government agencies is often skewed. With agencies created ad infinitum to monitor certain actions of others, and varying degrees of authority, clarifying responsibility for government inaction is difficult.