posed to unsafe levels of pesticides in fruit, vegetables, orbaby food every year, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group (Grossfield B1). Children also breathe differently. A one year old child breathes 50% more air each minute relativeto their weight than do adults (Reigart D3). Supporters believe this new law would limit theamount of chemical residue a child is exposed to throughout its lifetime.Proponents of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 believe that the risk to farmworkers and their families will be greatly reduced. One Hundred Thousand farm workers aretreated annually for pesticide related illness according to the American Association of PoisonControl Centers (Grossfeild B1). Proponents believe the research conducted due to the FoodQuality Protection Act of 1996 would reduce the treat of illness to the farm worker. Environmentalist also support this law, because it makes chemical companies provide dataregarding the toxic life the many chemical and the re-registration of all chemicals. There-registration is very important to environmental groups, because new research has been done thatshows many chemicals that could potentially be harmful were not restricted in the old laws. Thenew law will require every chemical to be looked at and determined if it is harmful or not.Farm chemical organizations and many farmers oppose this bill mainly for two reasons.The first being the vagueness in the way that the bill is written. Chemical companies believe howthe Environmental Protection Agency implements the Food Quality Protection Act will criticallyimpact the future of key pesticides vital to maintaining a safe and abundant food supply. Opponents believe there is no way to accurately measure the long term effects of these chemicalsand the Food Quality Protection Act requires them to do this, which is next to impossible (Sray49). Alan Schreiber of the Agrichemical Environmental News says, the most unset...
