ABSTRACT
In the US, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the primary responsibility for regulating pesticides under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Under FIFRA, EPA has the authority to regulate the sale, distribution, and use of pesticides in the US. FIFRA has its roots in the 1910 Insecticide Act, which marked Congress first attempt to regulate the sale and distribution of pesticides. FIFRA came into being in its current form after the nations experiences with DDT and other toxic pesticides. FIFRA defines the term pesticide very broadly to include naturally occurring substances as well as living organisms. The vast majority of EPAs data requirements under FIFRA relate to human health effects. These data requirements include testing on residue chemistry to estimate human exposure to pesticides, acute human hazard, subchronic human hazard, chronic human hazard, mutagenicity, metabolism studies, reentry hazard, spray drift evaluation, as well as oncogenicity, teratogenicity, neurotoxicity, and reproductive effects in humans.
