Government sued after approving 4 pesticides

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Environmental and farmworker advocates have sued the Bush administration for allowing the continued use of four pesticides, saying the government brushed aside its own findings that the chemicals are dangerous to workers, children and wildlife.

The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's decision in 2006 to reauthorize the four pesticides sprayed on fruit and vegetable fields in California.

A 1996 federal law required the EPA to reassess the safety of all pesticides used on foods and decide by 2006 whether to approve their use. Patti Goldman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the agency found that four substances posed risks to human health but concluded their cost savings to growers outweighed the dangers.

"These four pesticides put thousands of farmworkers and their families at risk of serious illness every year," said Goldman, of the nonprofit firm Earthjustice.

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