July 2026, Washington: The EPA approved a number of new pesticides yesterday that studies suggest may pose serious risks to human health and the environment, including fluoxapiprolin, epyrifenacil, trifludimoxazin and new uses of chlormequat chloride. In each case, EPA dismissed substantive concerns raised by scientists, Center for Food Safety, and other organizations
“With yesterday’s pesticide approvals, the Trump Administration’s EPA is once again showing its disdain for Americans’ health and the natural world,” said Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety. “The EPA’s pesticide division is seemingly no longer able to recognize evidence that a pesticide causes cancer, even when it’s the pesticide company’s own studies that show it,” he added. “And as per usual, EPA dismisses out of hand incriminating independent studies by scientists not affiliated with the pesticide industry.”
Fluoxapiprolin is a new systemic fungicide approved for use up to three times per year on a host of widely-grown fruits and vegetables. Epyrifenacil is a burndown herbicide intended for field crops like wheat, corn, soybeans and canola. Studies show that both pesticides produce tumors in laboratory rodents, yet EPA dismissed the evidence and classified both as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” Fluoxapiprolin caused uterine cancer and thymus gland tumors in female rats, while epyrifenacil induced liver tumors in male mice. The pesticides are so new that there are few, if any, studies available on human exposure or their effects on farmers, farmworkers, and other users.
“The EPA’s illegitimate rejection of the evidence that these two pesticides cause cancer is very similar to the tricks it pulled in denying glyphosate could cause cancer. These blatant violations of the agency’s own Cancer Guidelines are unacceptable,” said Sylvia Wu, Co-Executive Director at Center for Food Safety.
In 2022, a federal court took the unusual step of revoking EPA’s human health assessment of glyphosate due to the agency’s deficient cancer assessment, in a lawsuit brought by Center for Food Safety and allied organizations. Key to the decision was EPA’s numerous violations of its own Cancer Guidelines, which provide rules for deciding whether a pesticide is likely or unlikely to cause cancer.
Trifludimoxazin was approved for use on apples, almonds, oranges, oats, and wheat. EPA’s own previous analyses found “suggestive evidence” that the herbicide causes cancer, and that it “will likely cause severe harm” to many threatened and endangered fish, including endangered populations of Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, Atlantic sturgeon and smalltooth sawfish. In 2021, CFS and allied organizations sued the EPA over trifludimoxazin’s approval, arguing that the agency unlawfully discounted impacts of spray drift and runoff to terrestrial and aquatic plants, fish, and threatened and endangered species in its’ approval. Rather than see the litigation through, the manufacturer BASF agreed to stop sales of trifludimoxazin in 2022.
Chlormequat chloride has had very limited use until now in the U.S., chiefly on ornamentals and other greenhouse plants. EPA’s approval opens the door wide to far more extensive use on use on wheat, oats and other grain crops. Independent animal studies dismissed out of hand by EPA demonstrate that chlormequat chloride disrupts reproductive hormones and suggest that it impairs the fertility of sperm. EPA’s own environmental assessment shows that chlormequat also poses risks to mammals, birds and honeybees.
Chlormequat is not used to kill pests, weeds or plant pathogens, but rather to strengthen the stalks of grain crops. Because this endocrine disruptor is so persistent, it is one of the most frequently detected pesticides in food grown in Europe, where biomonitoring studies detect it in the urine of practically everyone who is tested. EPA has approved ultra-high maximum residue limits (known as tolerances) that far exceed international norms, including 5 parts per million (ppm) on wheat, and an astronomical 40 parts per million on oats.
“EPA should never have approved this endocrine-disrupting pesticide, particularly since its persistence and potential for widespread use on wheat and other widely consumed grains will mean universal exposure,” said Freese.
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