Risky pesticide sales continue

The latest fuss over the illegal sale and use of the agricultural pesticide aluminum phosphide is just one part of a larger issue revolving around the legal sale of pesticides in Saudi Arabia that have been banned for domestic use in the United States, Europe and other countries.

A stop at one local pesticide vendor yielded six different brands of diazinon pesticide and one bottle of chlorpyrifos, all labeled for use in the home.

Both of these chemicals have been banned for domestic and home-garden use and are ranked as moderately toxic (Toxicity Class II) by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In Saudi Arabia these chemicals — manufactured locally as well as imported from China, Egypt and Jordan — are sold as effective poisons against invasive home insects, including bedbugs and cockroaches. All of these products are legal to sell to home consumers in the Kingdom with prices ranging from SR45 to SR120.

One of the products is a locally manufactured pesticide containing 60 percent diazinon that was bought for less than SR100, complete with instructions to mix the liquid with other pesticides and apply it in the home as an effective measure against cockroaches, bedbugs and ants. In an interview recently with Arab News, retired American toxicologist Jim Knaack, the first expert to work on pesticide labeling in the state of California, warned against the domestic use of this chemical.

“People should not be using diazinon in their homes,” he said. “For home use people should really be sticking to phyrethroids (a synthetic version of a natural pesticide found in chrysanthemums).” Diazinon is a common name of an organophosphate insecticide used to control pests in soil, crops and fruit and vegetable plants. It is also used in home pesticides but has been banned for home use since 2000 and banned for garden use in 2004 as stated by EPA. Organophosphate poisoning can occur through inhalation of fumes in high concentrations, or by prolonged exposure of lower concentrations indoors or in home gardens.

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate pesticide that is characterized as a strong toxin. The EPA found chlorpyrifos to be unsafe for children. It was the third organophosphate pesticide to be restricted for home use in recent years. US-based Pesticide Action Network’s senior scientist Margaret Reeves criticized the EPA last year for continuing to allow the use of chlorpyrifos for agricultural purposes because of the danger to farm workers and because scientific studies have shown that the pesticide can “damage the developing nervous systems of fetuses, infants and children.”

According to Knaack, the proliferation of potentially dangerous pesticides is due to a lack of international standards in consumer protection.

“The labeling instructions and restrictions we might put on pesticides in the US may not be the same labels and instructions you find in Egypt or India or Italy or some of these other countries that manufacture and label these things,” said Knaack. “The European Union has pretty much adopted the same standards we have in the US so if the products come from there it should be pretty much the same we have over here. The EU may even have some additional restrictions. But when it gets into Third World countries or some of these other countries, well that’s something else. That’s a regulatory problem in those countries.”

Meanwhile, the vendors themselves seem to be putting profits over protection, doling out potentially dangerous advice and chemicals to unwary customers frustrated over infestations in the home and looking for something that will get rid of the bugs once and for all.

Arab News visited a local pesticide vendor posing as a customer to see what kind of products and advice would be given. The vendor offered potentially dangerous chemicals, and recommended even making them stronger by adding less water and mixing different brands and chemicals together. He also offered the kind of equipment that a professionally trained and licensed pest controller would use. The vendor showed a bottle of chlorpyrifos for SR90 that had instructions to mix about a small teacup of the chemical to 145 liters of water.

The vendor was asked if a professional should be used to apply such chemicals.
“No need,” he said. “You can mix it yourself and apply it on the furniture. Go out for 12 hours.”

Another salesperson said that for bedbugs the pesticide should be made stronger (by using less water) and to apply it and vacate the home for three to four hours. He added the resident is more familiar with his or her home than a licensed exterminator and that a professional is therefore unnecessary.

An agricultural engineer, later contacted by Arab News, said that mixing different pesticides is potentially dangerous. He also warned that vendors should not be selling agricultural pesticides.

“There is a big difference between public pesticides and agricultural pesticides,” he said. He also said that professionals should mix these chemicals and he warned the public not to take advice from salespersons.

The pesticide vendor suggested some tablets the customer could acquire that would guarantee elimination of the pests. “These tablets are strong enough not to leave any of them alive,” he said. “(It) can kill in two to three minutes.”

The vendor said the tablets would produce fumes and the home should be left vacant for up to three days. He also admitted that this chemical is banned for domestic use. He offered to make the tablets available in two to three days for SR110. He would not agree to sell the tablets directly, but offered to come to the house and personally apply the pesticide.

Though he did not mention the chemical in question, all descriptions provided suggest that the product is aluminum phosphide, the chemical that has been responsible for numerous deaths in Saudi Arabia.

In February aluminum phosphide took the lives of two children at Basateen Village compound after a licensed pest controller applied the chemical to a vacated unit. The fumes spread to the adjoining residence and poisoned a family of four.

This was not the first incident where neighbors have been poisoned, and at least one forensics specialist has admitted that past cases have been misdiagnosed as food poisoning.

The Ministry of Health does not track poisonings as its own category of fatalities, so the actual number of pesticide poisonings is unknown.

Mohammad Al-Dabasi the general manager of Laboratories and Quality Supervision at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a written statement that the responsibility of monitoring pesticides in the market falls on the Ministry of Agriculture according to the ministerial decision No. 50 issued in 1989.