Official seeks tobacco-import tests (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

17 August 1999

Official seeks tobacco-import tests

By Barbara J. SaffirTHE WASHINGTON TIMES

An agriculture official is calling for mandatory pesticide testing of all
imported tobacco after an audit found that some exporters "routinely use"
chemicals that have been banned or restricted in the United States. The
pesticides "have been identified as probable or possible human
carcinogens" and pose "great risks to human health," Assistant Inspector
General James R. Ebbitt said in a U.S. Department of Agriculture audit
report. Mr. Ebbitt and other USDA officials would not say exactly which of
the banned chemicals they detected, nor would they release the names of
the companies involved. The 20 chemicals they test for include DDT, which
was banned here in 1972, and cancer-causing agents such as chlordane and
hexachlorobenzene. An official said that the pesticide-tainted tobacco the
USDA found was destroyed and did not endanger American consumers, but that
most tobacco imports do not undergo testing that could catch them, and
tobacco imports are on the rise.


Currently, the USDA only tests about one-third of imported tobacco because
the 1983 law that required the tests applies solely to "unmanufactured
flue-cured and burley tobacco." Tests are not required for other types of
imported tobacco, which accounted for about two-thirds --$1.03 billion of
the $1.56 billion --of imports in 1997.


The raw tobacco imports that do not undergo tests are oriental tobacco and
tobacco stems and scraps, which are blended into many American cigarettes.
Testing also is not required for imported aromatic tobacco and
cigar-wrapper tobacco or imported manufactured tobacco products, such as
cigars and cigarettes. "Foreign-grown tobacco now accounts for one-third
of the tobacco found in cigarettes produced in the United States, compared
to about 15 percent 20 years ago," the March 31 report said.


Random tests conducted by USDA technicians on the imported flue-cured and
burley tobacco found 39 violations over the past 3-and-a-half years, said
John P. Duncan II, director of the USDA's Tobacco Programs office at the
Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). While only six of the 3,600 samples
tested so far this year found violations, USDA officials would not reveal
which pesticides they found or in what quantities. It would take
"significant staff work" to run down a list of the violations, said Mr.
Duncan's boss, Kathleen Merrigan, the top administrator at AMS. The USDA's
inspector general reported that AMS tests for 20 prohibited pesticides, 11
of which are "banned" in the United States and one that is "severely
restricted."


His report says banned or restricted pesticides have been found in tobacco
imported from Greece and Brazil. Brazil has been cited 11 times for
violations since AMS started testing the flue-cured and burley tobacco in
1986, and Greece was cited three times, the audit shows. It also said that
as of 1995, Greece still allowed the use of seven of the 20 banned or
restricted pesticides, and that Brazil still used 1,000 metric tons of DDT
as late as 1995. Officials at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington did not
return calls asking for comment. Brazil and Turkey export more oriental
and aromatic tobacco to the United States than any other countries.
Exports from Turkey, which still permits one of the banned or restricted
pesticides, have not been tested because Turkey typically did not export
flue-cured or barley tobacco to the United States, the report said.


At least two major American companies -- R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and
Philip Morris -- are now involved in tobacco production in Turkey,
according to a report by the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service. R.J.
Reynolds imports mostly oriental tobacco for its Winston, Salem, Camel and
Doral brand cigarettes from Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Macedonia, and to
a lesser extent from Italy and Thailand, a company spokesman said.
Meanwhile, some critics say the threat from pesticides has been overblown.
"I do not doubt some pesticides have been banned for very good reasons,
[but] a long list of things that have been banned here have been
political," said Michael Fumento, a health writer at the Hudson Institute.
"I think it is absurd to worry about small amounts of pesticides on
tobacco leaves," he said. "There is no safe use of tobacco -- whether you
are smoking it, chewing it, whether it is in a pipe or a cigar." As more
American companies venture abroad, "the number of United States farms
growing tobacco dropped 75 percent from 1954 to 1992," the USDA audit
report says. "This decline is due in part to tobacco companies looking to
developing countries as a source of less-expensive tobacco." The Supreme
Court has agreed to hear a case this fall that could result in FDA
regulating tobacco.