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RCED-94-160R 1 (1994-06-21)

handle is hein.gao/gaobackph0001 and id is 1 raw text is: j5207Y7 GAO Iu5) t~ ~ ~;- Ct ~cW 2. fl~iQ S c.no W ~ '1 -I ~ 0 r~ United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548 Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division B-256727 June 21, 1994 The Honorable John Glenn Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs United States Senate Dear Mr. Chairman: This correspondence responds to your September 28, 1992, request that we review the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) February 1992 decision to retain 45 crop uses for a group of fungicides known as EBDCs (ethylene bisdithiocarbamates), while canceling 11 uses. This decision was almost the reverse of an initial proposal made about 2 years earlier. In your letter, you asked that we determine whether there were deficiencies in the way human health concerns about EBDCs were handled. We recently briefed your staff on the results of our data collection. In summary, we did not find any significant weaknesses in EPA's review of the health effects of EBDCs. EPA's decision to retain most of the crop uses for EBDCs was based on lower estimates of the carcinogenic risk from dietary exposure to EBDCs. The risk estimates EPA used in its February 1992 decision were lower than those used in its initial proposal and resulted primarily from two factors--a reduction in the estimates of EBDC residue on food crops and a reduction in the cancer potency factor. We reviewed the basis for EPA's decision and determined that EPA's market basket survey and the reevaluation of, and subsequent reduction in, the cancer potency factor had the greatest effect on overall reductions in risk estimates. Our review focused primarily on these two efforts. The market basket survey, which involved a sampling of food items from grocery store shelves, essentially confirmed EPA's belief that EBDC residues on food crops at the marketplace were much lower than the estimates used in its preliminary decision. The earlier estimates were based on food samples taken at the farm gate immediately after harvest. GAOIRCED-94-160R, EPA's Actions Relating to EBDC Use

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