Organic farmers and gardeners will have easier access to some pest control products. The EPA has decided that 31 substances will no longer be regulated as pesticides.

I would bet that most readers did not realize these things were pesticides. You can relax, however, your wife has not been hiding poison on the spice rack unless she tells you that cyanide just provides an "almond taste". Under the old regulations, any product that was sold with pesticide claims was regulated under FIFRA just like conventional pesticides.

To protect an unsuspecting public from charlatans, these products will not be completely unregulated. The labels must list all active and inert ingredients, and they cannot claim to control bacteria or viruses that threaten human health. Additionally, exempted products are not allowed to imply they control diseases carried by insects or rodents, such as "control ticks that may carry Lyme disease".

From Georgia Pest Management Newsletter, Vol. 18, No. 2. March 22, 1996. Pages 6-7.

This article originally appeared in the April 12, 1996 issue, p. 55.