On May 28th, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pesticide Programs published its final risk mitigation decision on ten rodenticides; it restricts consumer access to second generation rodenticides, which until now have been widely used, especially in urban areas prone to rodent infestation. This is a drastic mitigation measure that is not warranted. In fact, the EPA’s decision flies in the face of the conclusions made by a multi-stakeholder group that reviewed the issue of children’s exposure to rodenticides and determined the risk was low. Unfortunately, the EPA’s recent actions could hurt the people who may need rodenticides the most.

The EPA failed to acknowledge several key facts when it made its decision:

• There has never been a recorded death in a child from any “blood thinning” rat and mouse poisons.
• There has never been a reported case of a child getting seriously ill as a result of accidentally ingesting any of these products.
• There are approximately 10,000 rat bites to humans per year in the United States; a large number of these are children.
• During a 20 year period, there were more than 20,000 accidental exposures reported to poison centers. None of the children exposed under the age of 6 years developed physical evidence of toxicity.
• The chemicals that are being restricted are in EPA’s lowest hazard category.
• The chemicals that are being restricted from consumer use were developed to kill resistant rodents.  This action may actually result in the increase of populations of resistant rodents.

This decision by the EPA does more harm than good. Without broad consumer access to these ten rodenticides, it is quite possible that rodent populations could increase, resulting in significant health threats in urban areas.