1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY PESTICIDE PROGRAM DIALOGUE COMMITTEE MEETING Wednesday, October 27, 2021 11:00 a.m. DAY ONE ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PARTICIPANTS PESTICIDE PROGRAM DIALOGUE COMMITTEE ROSTER October 2021 Walter Alarcon Ruben Arroyo Amy Asmus Manojit Basu Steven Bennett Jasmine Brown Lori Ann Burd Douglas Burkett Douglass Cameron Iris Figueroa Joseph Gryzwacz Gary Halvorson Gina Hilton Komal Jain Mark Johnson Patrick Johnson Dominic LaJoie Charlotte Liang Amy Liebman Aaron Lloyd Lauren Lurkins Daniel Markowski Gary Prescher Caleb Ragland Damon Reabe Karen Reardon Charlotte Sanson David Shaw Christina Stucker-Gassi Cathy Tortorici Mily Trevino-Sauceda Lisa Fleeson Trossbach Tim Tucker Edward Wakem Nina Wilson John Wise Tim Lust ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 PROCEEDINGS DAY ONE - OCTOBER 27, 2 021 FACILITATOR: Good morning, everybody. We have a lot of folks logging on kind of right here at the top of the hour. So let's give it another minute before Ed Messina opens the meeting for today. So let's give it another minute or so. Thank you. And maybe I could get a thumbs-up from someone that you can hear me okay? Okay, thank you very much. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, we can hear you. FACILITATOR: Thanks, Daniel. All right. MR. MESSINA: And, Shannon, if you could let me know -- oh, there's Jake. Jake, you're on? You're here already? Thanks. MR. LI: Yes. Thanks, Ed. I assume you can hear me. MR. MESSINA: I can hear you. I can't see you. If you haven't turned your video on, that's okay. JAKE: I'm going to -- MR. MESSINA: We're going to do -- yeah, we're going to toss it to you pretty quickly because we're not going to do like a big agenda run-through. We're going to have you be our keynote and -- ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4 Mr. LI: Oh, okay. You know, I've never used Webex until now. I didn't realize we're on Webex, so I'm actually trying to figure out how to start the video and it's not quite working yet. MR. MESSINA: Okay. FACILITATOR: There's probably a button towards the bottom of your screen, Jake, that might say start or stop video. MR. LI: Yeah, I've tried it multiple times. FACILITATOR: Oh. MR. LI: And it is not working. I'm going to try it again. MR. MESSINA: Maybe when you entered the room, it asked whether to use the camera or What have you. MR. LI: Oh, fixed it. MR. MESSINA: Oh, there you go. I see you now. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was going to say mine had a slight delay, but it caught up maybe 10 seconds later. MR. LI: Great. Okay. Well, it sounds like I'll stay on mute until we're ready for me to speak. Does that sound good? MR. MESSINA: Yeah, sounds good. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 5 MR. LI: Great, thank you. MR. MESSINA: It will be pretty quick, you know, within the 10-minute mark. MR. LI: Okay, great. Thanks. MR. MESSINA: Mm-hmm. FACILITATOR: And, Jake, you're -- your voice is a little bit low just in terms of a volume. If you can maybe get a little bit closer to the mic, it might help. MR. LI: Okay. Let me -- how is this? Is that better? Is this better? FACILITATOR: Yeah, I think that's pretty good. Can you folks hear Jake okay? MR. MESSINA: Yeah. MR. LI: Okay. I'm just going to try to speak loud. This is my normal setup. So it may be something with Webex where it's picking up my volume differently. FACILITATOR: Okay. MR. LI: Okay. Thanks, Paul. FACILITATOR: Sure thing. And, Ed, we have about 130 people online right now, which is a pretty good chunk of the expected participation, and I'm showing 11:03. So if you are ready, we could get started. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 6 MR. MESSINA: Yeah, let's get rolling. So, thank you, Paul. Thanks, Shannon, for all the logistics in the background and the many folks that are supporting us today. Welcome, everyone, and good afternoon, good morning to members of the public, our PPDC members, workgroup members, and EPA and other stakeholders, the many stakeholders that help EPA drive better policy making decisions. So thank you for your participation today. And I'm really excited and I think we've got a great agenda. We've had a lot of work happening in the background before this meeting from the many workgroups, which you are going to hear from over the next couple of days. They're going to talk about the reports that they would like to submit to the PPDC for consideration to be submitted to EPA. And my initial read of all those materials, which are online and have been posted, is some pretty incredible work that's been happening even before this meeting. Members of the public can find all of the meeting materials and documents today on the PPDC website. We're going to be throwing links throughout the sessions in the chat at the time that it is sort of relevant to talk about them. And there's the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7 advisory committee sites or area where folks will post that in the chat. You can see where the agenda is. You can see where the various reports are throughout the day. We also have been renewing our PPDC charter and it was renewed this month and that is also on the PPDC website. And that link will be posted in the chat. And then, lastly, we have been renewing the PPDC membership as part of that normal cycle. The proposed membership package is actually on its way to the Administrator's office for final approval and for the letters of invitation to serve on PPDC to be sent out. Thank you for all of our returning members. Everyone came back that could come back. So we really appreciate your continued dedication to this committee and for your work and thoughtful comments that you've provided as part of this. So rather than going into kind of the overview, the agenda, and kind of walk you through that and all the logistics, we thought it might be more fun to have our premier speaker up-front. I'm really happy and proud to introduce Jake Li to talk to us today with our opening remarks. Jake is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Pesticide Programs ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 8 within the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention for which the Office of Pesticide Programs is part of. One of Jake's priorities, as he's come on board, is to help EPA achieve its endangered species protection goals related to pesticide decisions. He's really been rolling up the sleeves talking with us in OPP, talking with stakeholders, trying to build some coalitions around how EPA can meet that obligation, which we are committed to doing. Immediately before joining EPA, Jake worked for over a decade in the nonprofit sector on natural resource conservation and chemical regulatory issues. Jake has also represented the regulated community as an environmental lawyer at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where his portfolio included chemical regulation and endangered species matters. Jake strives to bring his insight from working with the private sector and environmental groups to find practical, fair, efficient, and durable solutions to how EPA regulates pesticide and other chemicals. He's also published on the topic. He's published recently. He's the co-editor Endangered Species Act Law, Policy, and Perspectives, the third edition, which was just published in 2021. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 9 So please join me in welcoming Jake to the stage for a presentation. And then after that, we'll do introductions of PPDC membership, we'11 go through the agenda, and we'll cover some of the logistics. So thank you for attending, Jake. MR. LI: Great. Thanks so much, Ed, for the kind introduction. Can you all hear me just want to make sure? MR. MESSINA: Yeah, you're coming in pretty loud and clear. MR. LI: Okay, fantastic. So thanks again, Ed, and good morning, everyone. It's really wonderful to be here with you and to hear the updates from all of you about what's happening on the PPDC recently. Thanks for inviting me to speak today and share what the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention has been doing recently specifically to advance environmental justice and our work under the Endangered Species Act. I wanted to speak only for about six minutes. So I'm going to constrain myself to these two topics here. Throughout all of this work, our office really believes that success requires collaboration between EPA and our stakeholders. So I'm glad to be here today to discuss ways that we can continue working ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 10 together on these issues. Let me start with environmental justice. A top priority of this administration is advancing equity and justice for all communities, including people of color, those who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and harmed by persistent poverty and inequity. So across EPA, we're pursuing this priority in several ways. Let me just sort of offer three as examples. First is strengthening enforcement of violations in communities overburdened by pollution; second is incorporating environmental justice to our work where it's not already considered; and third is improving engagement with underserved communities. I can say that in my four months here -- four months as in tomorrow, we've had multiple meetings across various offices in EPA to coordinate on environmental justice. So I can confirm folks are rolling up their sleeves, and I'm just personally really excited about this work. Within OCSPP specifically, we're committed to making environment with justice, a critical component of our work, especially by considering, in a FIFRA risk assessment process, people who are disproportionately affected by adeverse health or ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 11 environmental effects from an exposure to pesticides. So this includes farmworkers and tribes that have been historically marginalized. And as part of this focus, the Office of Pesticide Programs is currently carrying out several initiatives. Let me just offer two as examples. One is they're looking into how to compare the location of shallow, private drinking water wells with information on underserved communities. And so this will help us focus on farmworker populations and high agricultural areas and urban settings. And this information will then allow OPP to better understand pesticide exposure through drinking water for these populations. Let me offer a second example. OPP is also working on a project to develop a new set of groundwater modeling scenarios that consider a variety of factors, including climate conditions, crop- specific management practices, soil specific properties and hydrology for areas across the country where private drinking water wells overlap with vulnerable communities. And so I actually think this effort both helps promote our environmental justice initiatives, but also is relevant to our work on climate change, right, and being more climate smart in our decisions. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 12 And so with this additional information, OPP is -- our goal is to consider farmworkers and other environmental justice communities more effectively in our pesticide evaluations. Also, EPA solicits feedback from stakeholders on environmental justice concerns as part of the public comment process for various pesticide risk mitigation decisions. So we will continue to welcome and appreciate all public comments on environmental justice and all other aspects of our pesticide decisions. I can say that as a former stakeholder, I know how much time it takes to write public comments and to do thoughtful comments. So I really appreciate the time that you all put in to write these comments and know that we really do consider them. So that's what I wanted to say briefly on environmental justice. Now, let me move to the Endangered Species Act. Another top priority for OCSPP is for our FIFRA decisions to come into compliance with the Endangered Species Act. We know we have a lot of work to do to achieve this priority and it will take many years, but we know that we do have the goal of improving ESA compliance and we're moving aggressively toward it. My view is that we basically have to move ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 13 fast -- we have no other choice -- to build an ESA FIFRA program that can complete the large number of complex consultations that we have teed up in an efficient manner that delivers real world benefits for species, right, but is also fair, transparent, and predictable for pesticide users, registrants, growers, and so forth. So please know, though, that this isn't going to happen overnight, right? We can't sort of fix several decades of challenges in sort of a blink of an eye, but we are developing a work plan, which we hope to release later this year to explain what improvements we plan to pursue over the next decade and how to connect all of those dots together. So these improvements will include, just by way of example, working with applicants and registrants to incorporate early mitigation to protect ESA species, developing more efficient ways to consult with the services, upgrading our bulletins live to interface so that it can really do the volume of county or sub-county level labeling that we have in mind, and increasing the efficiency and the number of stakeholder engagement opportunities, especially when it comes to getting better data from our stakeholders. So I don't want to get too far ahead of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 14 myself in this meeting, but I did want to convey that we're actively working on the long-term plan and we're going to use it to explain how again all the pieces of our improved efforts fit together. So our hope is that by the next PPDC meeting we'll actually have this plan out for you. You can read it beforehand. We can get into more details and answer your questions. I also wanted to underscore briefly that we're working not just internally on ESA FIFRA improvements but across the federal family. On October 15th, we had our first meeting of the ESA FIFRA interagency working group of this administration, with a focus on identifying overall directions for improving the ESA FIFRA process. I personally think it was a success and I'm excited to share more with you soon. We're actually working on a public statement that we expect will come out fairly soon. And we have a lot more on ESA, but in the interest of time, I wanted a preview just these few items for all of you. So in closing, I want to reiterate that EPA really values the input from stakeholders. I personally read a lot of those comments and letters, and we look forward to strengthening these relationships with all of you. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 15 We'11 have some time for questions and answers, so if there are any really quick questions in the next few minutes, I'm happy to take them. And thanks again for inviting me to speak today. MR. MESSINA: Thanks, Jake. So any questions in the chat and I -- I'm not sure I can see the chat function on my screen, I'm also -- I haven't used -- I've used Webex before, but I haven't used it in a while. So, Paul, and Shannon, if you want to let us know if there are any questions. MS. JEWELL: I don't see — FACILITATOR: I don't see -- go ahead, Shannon. MS. JEWELL: Oh, sorry. Yeah, I was just going to say I think the same. I don't see chats yet. But, Paul, I'll leave it to you. FACILITATOR: Well, I'm just looking at the chat window. If you look in the lower right-hand side of your screen, you'11 probably see two buttons or two words, one is participants and one is chat. And if you click on the chat, it will open up a chat box where you can see actually some welcomes, some links, et cetera, and you also see a place there where you can enter a chat message here. So that's where you ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 16 would insert your cursor and write a comment or a question for Jake in this case. And, also, just above that chat window is a drop-down box that -- it should be set at everyone, right? So it looks like, for example, Amy Asmus has just asked a question in the chat box. Jack Li, thank you for sharing with us today your information and time. And that went to everyone. So I just want to make sure -- so there's a thank you, Jake. MR. LI: Thanks, Amy, for the comment and for relating it, Paul. This isn't your only chance to obviously answer ask questions. So, you know, if there's anything immediate you want to ask me, please feel free to do so. If not, we can certainly continue asking questions later on in this program if that's correct. MR. MESSINA: Certainly. All right. FACILITATOR: Jake. I'm not sure if you can see this, but -- MR. MESSINA: Well, going once, going twice. FACILITATOR: There is a -- a question did pop up, Ed. So if it's okay if I -- MR. MESSINA: Yeah. FACILITATOR: -- in case people can't see it. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 Everybody should be able to see it, but -- MR. MESSINA: Sure. FACILITATOR: -- I think I saw one here with a -- from Doug Burkett. With pending listing of monarchs, how do you predict this will impact labeling? MR. LI: Yeah, good question. Monarchs is sort of challenging, right, because it's a species that's actually found -- it's almost everywhere, right? It's one of these highly ubiquitous ESA listed species. I'll be honest, we're still, I think, thinking through how best to address monarch conservation. Just really quickly, I can imagine opportunities to broader sort of protections for monarch, but also there's a lot of programs right now to have that conservation and just improve habitat more generally for monarchs. So there may be ways to sort of incorporate all of that into our ESA FIFRA program. Ed, is there anything more specific you want to add? I don't want to get too ahead of the service in terms of listing and conservation decisions. MR. MESSINA: Well, I think, as you mentioned, Jake, it's a great question and it's certainly something we've been giving some thought to. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 18 So I agree. FACILITATOR: And there's also a question -- MR. MESSINA: I'm just trying to look at the questions. Yeah, we -- FACILITATOR: Can you see the questions, Ed? Okay. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. So a question from Mano on is there a role for PPDC to play and support ESA work, and I -- to Jake and I, and, Jake, since you're new to PPDC I'll field that one. So certainly, and for your information, we've had Endangered Species Act topics on PPDC in the past. If you recall in the spring session, we had services come talk to us about their perspectives, we had registrants. I do think, you know, possibly once the, as Jake mentioned, the strategy is out and we put this as a topic for the next spring meeting, we'11 have some further discussion and then see if the PPDC wants to develop any sub-workgroup as a result of that. There are other workgroups that are out there, as Jake mentioned the interagency workgroup, so we can kind of take that and see what the best processes for handling how the agency can get advice on ESA. Thank you, Jake. We look forward to the process of your leadership and working together. Can ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 19 you give a high level overview of key farmworker initiatives in view, and then bumblebees potentially being listed on the ESA, also. Yeah, so basically farmworker questions. MR. LI: Do you want to cover that or is that something -- MR. MESSINA: Yeah. MR. LI: -- later in the agenda that we're going to talk about? MR. MESSINA: Yeah, I was just going to mention that I've got a couple of slides on -- what I get to do next is we're going to go through kind of a high level overview of all the work that OPP has been undertaking, including farmworker as a topic. There's, you know, hundreds of things that have been happening. It's a great -- I really enjoy the fall meeting because it's after the end of the fiscal year for the federal agency, and I get to be the cheerleader for all the amazing work that our highly qualified and dedicated public servants here at OPP have been engaged in, and that is certainly a topic we'll talk about. MR. LI: Great. So I think that's my sort of 10 minutes. So I wanted to thank you all for inviting me to be here. Thanks again, Ed, for the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 20 introduction, and I will put myself on mute and turn off on video for now so you all can move to the next part of the agenda. MR. MESSINA: Great. Thanks so much, Jake. Appreciate you attending. All right. So the next thing we were going to have Shannon kind of run through and introduce -- and have folks introduce themselves as part of the PPDC membership. Then I'm going to do the OPP overview and then we're going to take a look at the agenda and kind of talk about logistics. So with that, I'll kick it over to Shannon. MS. JEWELL: Thanks so much, Ed, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. I want to first make an announcement and give a special welcome to our newest PPDC member who will be serving out the remainder of this term, which, for the sake of meetings means this meeting, and that is Cameron Douglas. Cameron has replaced Cheryl Kunickis from USDA's Office of Pest Management Programs on the committee for the remainder of this term. And, as I say, he'll be introducing himself in just a moment. Walter Alarcon. Would you like to introduce yourself, Walter? DR. ALARCON: Yes, this is Walter Alarcon. I ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 21 am an epidemiologist and I work for the Center of Pesticide Programs in the CDC. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much. Ruben Arroyo. (No response.) MS. JEWELL: Okay, we'll come back to Ruben. Amy Asmus. MS. ASMUS: Hi, I'm Amy Asmus from North Central Iowa. I'm a principal in Asmus Farm Supply. We're growers. And I represent the Weed Science Society in PPDC. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Amy. Steven Bennett. MR. BENNETT: Good morning. I am Steven with the Household and Commercial Products Association. We represent products in the antimicrobial and the consumer space of conventional pesticides. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Steve. Jasmine Brown. MS. BROWN: Good morning, everyone. I'm Jasmine Brown. I'm located in Montana in Region 8. I'm the Salish and Kootenai Tribes pesticide program manager. I also sit on the Tribal Pesticide Program Council as the acting chairman. I do field and -- I do field inspections and investigations on behalf of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 22 EPA for several tribes here in Region 8, and happy to be a part of the PPDC. So I guess you could say I'm the boots on the ground, kind of working with agricultural communities in regards to their chemicals and their pollinator issues and crop issues and things. So happy to be here. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Jasmine. Lori Ann Burd. MS. BURD: Hi, I'm Lori Ann Burd. I'm the environmental health director and a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Lori Ann. Doug Burkett. MR. BURKETT: Yes, hey, good morning, PPDC. I'm Doug Burkett. I'm with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I'm with an office called the Armed Forces Pest Management Board. We have policy and guidance for all things pest management, including the training and certification program that we train our forces. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Doug. And Cameron Douglas. MR. DOUGLAS: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks, Shannon, for the special introduction this morning. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 23 I am a agronomist and weed scientist in USDA's Office of Pest Management Policy, which many of you know represents not only USDA agencies doing pest management work but also many minor and specialty crop producers in the U.S. Thank you again. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Cameron. Iris Figueroa. MS. FIGUEROA: Good morning, everyone. Iris Figueroa. I am the Director of Economic and Environmental Justice at Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization. MS. JEWELL: Thank you. Jim Fredericks. MR. FREDERICKS: Hi, everyone. I'm Jim Fredericks, the Vice President of Technical and Regulatory Affairs with the National Pest Management Association based in Fairfax, Virginia. We represent the 20,000 or so pest control companies operating across the United States. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Jim. Joe Gryzwacz. MR. GRYZWACZ: Hi, I'm Joe Gryzwacz. I'm at Florida State University. I'm not sure who I represent, but it's a pleasure for me to be here and assist in this important work. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 24 MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much. Gary Halvorson. MR. HALVORSON: Hi, I'm Gary Halvorson with CPDA, Council of Producers and Distributors of Agrotechnology. Our focus is working with companies that produce both inerts going into formulation of pesticides and adjuvants, and I'm very pleased to participate here. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Gary. Gina Hilton. DR. HILTON: Hey, good morning. My name is Dr. Gina Hilton and I am a toxicologist working for PETA. That's People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And I've been collaborating on several initiatives working to advance new approach methods and nonanimal methods specifically for regulatory decision-making for biochemical safety assessment, and it has been truly a pleasure to serve on this committee. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Gina. Komal Jain. MS. JAIN: Good morning, everyone. Komal Jain, the Executive Director of the Center for Biocide Chemistries, which is organized under the American Chemistry Council. We are a trade association of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 25 manufacturers and formulators of antimicrobial pesticides. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Komal. Mark Johnson. MR. M. JOHNSON: Good morning, everyone. I'm Mark Johnson, an Associate Director of Environmental Programs at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. We're the professional association for education and training of more than 18,000 members, men and women who manage the golf courses. I appreciate being here and this opportunity. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Mark. Patrick Johnson. MR. P. JOHNSON: I'm Patrick Johnson. I farm in Tunica, Mississippi. That's in the northwest corner of the state. We grow cotton, corn, rice, soybeans. And I'm representing the National Cotton Council on the committee. I look forward to our meeting. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Patrick. Dominic LaJoie. MR. LAJOIE: Hi, good morning, everybody. I'm Dominic LaJoie. I'm a fourth generation potato farmer from Van Buren, Maine. And I'm on the PPDC ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 representing the National Potato Council. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Dominic. Charlotte Liang. We'll have to come back to Charlotte. Amy Liebman. MS. LIEBMAN: Hi, good morning. I'm trying to -- there we go. Good morning. It's my pleasure to be here with all of you today. My name is Amy Liebman. I work for the Migrant Clinicians Network where I head up their environmental health and worker health and safety programs. Migrant Clinicians Network is a national organization working to improve healthcare access for immigrants and migrant workers. And I think that this is my last PPDC meeting, right, Shannon? MS. JEWELL: That is true. That is true, yes. Thank you so much for your now six years of service. MS. LIEBMAN: It's been a pleasure serving for you. MS. JEWELL: Aaron Lloyd. We'll have to come back to Aaron. Lauren Lurkins. MS. LURKINS: Hello there. My name is Lauren Lurkins. I am the Director of Environmental Policy at ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 Illinois Farm Bureau. I think there's my video. Sorry about that. And I am the representative of American Farm Bureau on this committee. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much, Lauren. Tim Lust. MR. LUST: Lust Service CEO, National Sorghum Producers, and represent sorghum farmers around the United States. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Tim. Sorry, this is a reversed here. Manojit Basu, AKA Mano Basu. DR. BASU: Thank you, Shannon. Good morning, everyone. I'm Manojit Basu. I'm the managing Director of Science Policy at Crop Life America. We are a trade association representing the developers, manufacturers, formulators, and distributors of pesticide products. I appreciate the opportunity to be at the PPDC. I'm looking forward to a great meeting. Thanks, Shannon. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Mano. Dan Markowski. DR. MARKOWSKI: Hello, I'm Dan Markowski. I work with Vector Disease Control International. We do mosquito and tick management surveillance programs throughout the U.S. I'm here representing the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 28 American Mosquito Control Association and all of our membership, and I'11 keep my thing on mute because I have a puppy that just got spayed yesterday and she's not doing well. So... MS. JEWELL: Well, thank you, Dan. Good luck to your puppy. Ed, of course needs no introduction. Gary Prescher. MR. PRESCHER: Good morning, everyone. Gary Prescher. I live and farm in South Central Minnesota and I represent the National Corn Growers Association. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Gary. Caleb Ragland. Okay. We'll come back to Caleb. I don't think Damon was able to join this morning. Damon, are you out there? I can't see all the names at once. Okay. Damon is -- MR. REABE: You bet, Shannon, I'm here. It's tomorrow the jury duty possibilities come into play. Damon Reabe. I'm an aerial applicator from Wisconsin, as well as an aerial application business owner, here representing the National Agricultural Aviation Association. MS. JEWELL: Thanks you so much, Damon. Karen Reardon. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 29 MR. MESSINA: Damon, were you trying to do all your government service in one day. MR. REABE: I did point out that I'm on a federally appointed committee and thought that that might get me out of a day of jury duty, but it didn't work. MR. MESSINA: Oh, sorry. MS. JEWELL: Karen Reardon. We'll come back to Karen. Oh, actually, Karen -- sorry about that. Karen is another one who has to join us this afternoon. Charlotte Sanson. MS. SANSON: Hi, good morning. I'm Charlotte Sanson. I work for ADAMA where I serve as head of North American Regulatory Affairs, and on PPDC, I represent the registrants of the Conventional Crop Protection Industry. Thanks so much. MS. JEWELL: Thanks, Charlotte. David Shaw. MR. SHAW: Good morning, everyone. David Shaw. I'm at Mississippi State University, a weed scientist by background and have been representing the Weed Science Society of America. I'm the past chair of the Herbicide Resistance Education Committee, so research and teaching activities related to resistance ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 30 management. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, David. Christina Stucker-Gassi? MS. STUCKER-GASSI: Good morning. This is Christina Stucker-Gassi. (Inaudible) manager with the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides. (Inaudible). MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much, Christina. Just to let you know your audio was pretty low. I think we could hear you, but just FYI going forward. Cathy Tortorici? (No response.) MS. JEWELL: Mily Trevino-Sauceda? MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Okay, Mily Trevino- Sauceda. I am the director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, which means the National Alliance of Farmworker Women. And I am right now in California, but after our presentation I will take the phone and do Bluetooth and be on the road because I have to go to El Paso. Sorry, but I'll be here. Thank you. MS. JEWELL: Thanks for sticking with us, Mily. Tim Tucker? MR. TUCKER: Yes, I'm happy to be here today and representing the beekeeping industry. I'm a ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 31 beekeeper of 30 years and a honey packer and distributing honey here in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. And once again, I'm happy to be here. And I think this is my eighth meeting. Is this my last meeting as well? MS. JEWELL: I don't have you down as being this last meeting, but let me check on that, Tim. Thank you so much, yeah. MR. TUCKER: Okay, thank you. MS. JEWELL: Okay. Edward Wakem. MR. WAKEM: Hi, I am a veterinarian with Ceva Animal Health and I am here representing the American Veterinary Medical Association, which is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois. MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much. Nina Wilson? MS. WILSON: Hi, my name is Nina Wilson -- sorry, I'm getting some feedback here. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. And this is also my last meeting. I represent the biological product industry and I'm also the vice chair of the Biological Products Industry Alliance. MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Nina. Thank you to you and Tim for all of your service. Dr. John Wise let me know to send everyone ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 32 his regards. He's not going to be able to join as he is chairing a meeting for the IR-4 Project that conflicts with this one. So with that, I turn it back to Ed and Paul. Thank you all so much. MR. MESSINA: Well, actually, I think you were saving the best for last. So if Liza could introduce herself. MS. JEWELL: Oh, sorry, Liza. Thank you, Ed. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: Good morning and thank you, Ed. I'm Liza Fleeson Trossbach. I am the program manager for the Office of Pesticide Services with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. I am representing the Association of American Pesticide Control Officials, or AAPCO. We are an association comprised of the pesticide regulatory officials for many of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. I am also the President Elect of AAPCO and so this will be my last meeting as I will be moving into the presidency in March and we will be having a new representative. So I did want to thank the group and EPA for the opportunity. It has been a privilege and a pleasure and I have learned a great deal. So thank you so much. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 33 MS. JEWELL: Thank you, Liza. MR. MESSINA: The pleasure and privilege has been ours, Liza. Thank you for your service. Yeah, it's -- you know, I used to not give this much thought, but, you know, in the current climate, I'm just truly amazed at this group and what it represents and just the cross-section of society and each of your interests and each of you being a leader in your field and bringing so much to the table to advise EPA and really just how government should be working. We don't always agree, and you should definitely feel free to challenge us and challenge each other in these discussions, but I really just think this is a -- at least an example that needs to be pointed out of sort of how government can work and how engagement can work. So I just really appreciate all of your years of service for many of you who are departing and for your thoughtful comments to the agency. So, with that, I think, Paul, we were going to kind of kick it to me and then we're go through the agenda. All right, and you're on mute. I get to say that to the facilitator. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 34 FACILITATOR: Finally, finally. Thank you. Yes, Ed, that is the right sequence. You're going to you -- you take it now and then after you're done, I'll take it from there. MR. MESSINA: All right. So am I moving the slides right now or just my own slides? FACILITATOR: I think -- Sarah can chime in, but I think we've got control and all you have to do is say, next slide please, unless you've already orchestrated that with Sarah to control your own slides. MR. MESSINA: So my view is on the org structure. Is that what everyone else is saying? Because I moved my slides. MS. JEWELL: No, Ed, if you could just say next slide, Sarah can just go through them for you. MR. MESSINA: Okay, so let's go to the next slide, which is the org structure. MS. JEWELL: Perfect. We're all there. MR. MESSINA: Oh, great, and I'm not. So how do I do that? Yeah, I don't -- for some reason, I don't see what slide you guys are on. FACILITATOR: Hmm — MR. MESSINA: So, let's see, it's interesting. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 35 All right. So we're on the org -- I'll name them out as I go and then this way folks can kind of see where we are. All right. So I'm going to talk about all of the work that's happened this past year, talk about some of the new priorities for the agency and how that matches up with OPP's priorities and kind of run through some changes that have happened in the organization. So you got to meet Jake today. He's at the top of that list there. He reports to Michal Freedhoff, who was at our last PPDC meeting in the spring. She's the Assistant Administrator. Jake is not the newest political deputy that has arrived to OCSPP. "Jennie" Romer or "Jeannie" Romer is the new Deputy AA for Pollution Prevention and she arrived just this week. So maybe we'll put her on the agenda for the spring meeting of PPDC and you guys can get a chance to meet her potentially. Rick Kelgwin, who had the job that I'm in now, as you all know, moved up to the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Management. And Tom Tyler's our Chief of Staff. We have the three offices that are represented within OCSPP and then we have the regional offices where we support generally the land, chemical, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 36 and redevelopment divisions that are in the regions, but we have our Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Office of Pesticide Programs and our Office of Program Support. And then within OPP, there's me there as the director and then we have Arnold Layne as the Management Deputy Director, and then Mike Goodis as the Program Deputy Director. Next slide. Office of Pesticide Programs overview. We have, for those of you are not familiar with OPP's structure, on the left side is sort of the registration divisions, Antimicrobials, Biopesticide and Pollution Prevention Division, Registration Division, which deals with our conventionals, and then Pesticide Reevaluation Division, which deals with the reevaluation of pesticide chemicals that are already in the marketplace. And on the right are sort of the science divisions. We have the Health Effects Division, which does human health reviews; Environmental Fate and Effects Division, which is responsible for the environmental reviews including ESA; and then the Biological and Economic Analysis Division, which under FIFRA provides the cost benefit analysis and risk ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 37 benefit analysis that occurs when we approve pesticide products. So now I'm going to talk a little bit about the agency priorities. If you can go to the slide that's got the draft 2022-2026 EPA strategic plan framework. This is the new draft framework, which is out for public comment, and a couple of notable differences or things that have changed from prior strategies that the agency has put out. So everyone should be familiar with EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment. Our principles that we follow are following the science, following the law, being transparent, and advancing justice and equality. OCSPP'S goals, we fit under Goal 7 on the right-hand bottom here, which is ensuring the safety of chemicals and the people in the environment. Some of the things that are different from this strategic plan, emphasizing some of what Jake said, is for the first time climate change is a standalone strategic goal, and environmental justice and civil rights goals are called out specifically in the agency core principal goal of advancing justice and equity. There's four cross-agency strategies, the scientific integrity, which I've got a slide on later, which is reemphasizing that in the priorities, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 38 science-based decision-making, considering the health of children in all stages of life, and including an eye towards vulnerable populations. And then advancing EPA's organizational excellence and workforce equity, strengthening tribal state and local partnerships, and enhancing engagement. So some changes and some emphasis on the new strategies that the current administration wants to put forward. So the next slide on the strategic goal on ensuring chemical and pesticide safety, these are how our goals roll up into the agency goals for the coming 2022 cycle. So it's protecting health of families, communities, and ecosystems from the risk posed by chemicals and pesticides under FIFRA and FQPA and PRIA, protecting people in the environment for risks, the pesticides reviewing and registering new pesticides, evaluating the current market pesticides for human health and ecological health, and then Endangered Species Act and considering the effects determinations or protections for federally threatened and endangered species. And along with these goals are actually some metrics and measures that are called the long-term performance goals. And so we have some specific goals ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 39 that we provide to OMB, including, for example, by 2026, completing 78 pesticide registration review cases, considering the effects determinations or protections of federally threatened and endangered species, so increasing our engagement on that for new active ingredients as well, as increasing protections for species for registration review decisions. And we have a baseline and we have a goal that we're trying to meet. And then, of course, as was asked in the prior session, sort of, what is our work towards farmworker protection, and we have our agricultural worker protection standard where we're trying, as a goal, to train about 20,000 farmworkers annually. And that's an increase from the baseline of about 11,000 that we've trained annually under the past policies related to that. So next slide. So our priorities, again OPP priorities as they roll up to the strategic plan, federally protected endangered species, environmental justice, climate change, critical science, PRIA 5, registration review program, working collaborating with the states and other stakeholders and continuing employee engagement, improving sort of office morale, process ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 40 improvements, we're still engaging in lean activities where we can improve processes within OPP, and then we have lots of IT improvements or digital transformations that were undertaking. So my slides sort of flow from these priorities in the next slides in the deck. And so we heard Jake talk about Endangered Species Act, so if we can go to that slide, Slide 8. We made a lot of progress on the scientific analysis used to conduct biological evaluations. Science is only one part of the equation. We are, as Jake mentioned, pivoting with an eye towards trying to get mitigation done early. We're focusing our work with stakeholders and we're working with stakeholders to realize the shared goal of protecting vulnerable species. And then on the next slide, this is specifically some of the things that we have done this past year. So a lot of work went into preparing pretty lengthy biological evaluations. We released by final biological evaluations for methomyl and carbaryl. These are the first BEs to use the revised method. We released draft biological evaluations for atrazine, simazine, propazine and glyphosate. And then we're releasing draft biological evaluations on ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 41 imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, and clothianidin. So that's some of the work engaged on Endangered Species Act, in addition to all the coordination work and new thinking and strategy development that Jake mentioned in his talk. On environmental justice, another key agency strategic goal, OPP is committed to making environmental justice a critical component of our work. An example that Jake provided was researching how to compare shallow and private drinking water well locations in high agricultural areas and urban settings to better understand the pesticide exposure of them, and then developing groundwater model scenarios for areas across the country where private drinking water wells overlap with vulnerable aquifers. Next slide on climate change. The agency in October released the agency's climate adaptation plan, so very recently, and it described the following steps for how we're going to address climate change, an important aspect that we are continuing to live with and see in our daily lives. We are integrating climate change adaptation and consideration of climate impacts into EPA's programs. What that means specifically for OPP is we are developing our own climate adaptation plan that ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 42 will play into the agency's climate plan. Key elements so far that are in draft are sort of doing vulnerability assessments. For example, what does climate change mean for changing pests complexes in terms of where they might be migrating, novel disease vectors, changing practices and priorities. Based on climate change, what type of training and science needs are needed in order to address climate change as part of our decisions? So we are currently developing our climate change plan to flow into the larger agency's plan. Scientific integrity, OPP has always been an office grounded in science. We have some of the best and world renowned experts, PhDs, in areas like toxicology and biology and economics, and they are sought after from other parts of the world to talk about these issues and frequently asked to speak at sessions for their work. So we continue to make sure that scientific integrity is part of our process. Servicing differences in science, you know, science is an amazing thing in that you sort of want to follow the science and sometimes it doesn't always give you one answer. The amazing and great thing about science is it provides different scientific studies, and some say one thing and other studies say ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 43 others. How do you balance that science and how do you make good sound policy decisions in light of some of the changing science, cutting-edge science, and conflicting science that can somehow come out. So we have a process for how we make sure that we are servicing the best science and making sure that dissenting opinions are, in fact, captured as part of that process. On the program support slide, Slide 13, this is just to give you a sense of sort of the volume of work that OPP has experienced in this past year. I'm incredibly proud to lead an organization that was really responsible for responding to the COVID pandemic, along with our other federal partners. We did the disinfection approvals. We did Section 18. So we were working entirely remotely. We had a crushing workload from COVID and we did it entirely in a telework environment. So it's pretty impressive the amount and statistics that I tried to provide to show you that we continue to work hard; we continue to receive and a record number of submissions; and we continue to produce a record number of decisions using that sound science. So we got about 11,000 submissions to the portal. That's not just small pieces of paper. Those ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 44 are studies that are pretty thick, applications that are that are pretty thick. And we did about 5,000 registration actions completed. The 11,000 -- if you're wondering oh, we only got to 5,000 out of 11,000, the 11,000 represents individual submissions. It's about 7,000 sort of packages and so we completed about 5- total. Our ombudsman responded to about 5,000 messages from the public, a lot of them COVID-related. Our center -- our IPM Center for Integrated Pest Management responded to another 2,000 public inquiries. And then we had about 100 congressional inquiries this past year that we responded to. Next slide. On our PRIA completions, again, another record year, we did about 2,400 PRIA completion actions, 97 percent of them on time. And then we registered 14 new active ingredients, which is another area where we focus our attention and our priorities, because these new active ingredients tend to be the ones that are more targeted, specific to the pest, have a lower risk profile, and so approving new tools for growers is certainly something that we are focused on. Slide 15. We did 60 Section 18 emergency ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 45 exemption decisions, providing growers with tools to control economically threatened pests where there were emergencies, Asian citrus psyllid, foot and mouth disease, weedy rice, palmer amaranth, coffee lead rust, brown stink bug, believe it or not, is reeking havoc in certain areas, including vineyards, and other bugs that were impacting rice a lot this year. So we had a number of Section 18 emergency requests from the states that we responded to pretty rapidly. Next slide. New pesticides, including conventional biochemicals, are listed here. If you're interested in what those individual pesticide registrations are, you can click on the link that takes you to Pesticide News Stories, and these are some of the new registrations that were issued. And Slide 17 sort of shows, historically, where EPA has been in terms of our resources. Anyone who's working government knows that, in general, resources have been declining. This is OPP's picture. So we started almost with a 1,000 employees and we're now down to about 600. And on the next slide, you can see that the work hasn't decreased. This is just a snapshot of the PRIA completions from 2004 to 2020. So you can see that for FY -- that last one in the FY section is ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 46 2020, and we did about 2,300 there. For 2021, as I mentioned, we're about 2,400. So another record year of completions, but another record year of submissions. The next slide is a metric that we keep an eye on, which is our renegotiation rate. Our renegotiation rate has been climbing since 2019. And for 2021, it's been slightly coming down. We're starting to mainly dig out of the volume of COVID work that has been increasing. I've got a slide on that later on. Next slide, so RD, which is our Registration Division, which deals with the conventionals, this line shows you -- the blue line is the total number received, the maroon line is completed, and the green line is pending, which again demonstrates the record number of submissions, the record number of completions, and the fact that our pending is starting to creep up, and we're not a trying to bend the curve on addressing our pending actions. And you can see that from RD's perspective, in 2014, they had a about 108 FTE and are down now to 87 FTE. And then next slide for the non-PRIAs, that's even sort of more dire in that our pendings are increasing. We tend to focus on the PRIA actions ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 47 first rather than non-PRIA actions. The PRIA actions have a time frame and we prioritize the work, given the workload and resources and try to address the PRIA actions first, which is why the non-PRIA actions have been lagging. Next slide. So hopefully folks know a lot about all the incredible work and resources that were devoted to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We completed about 300 expedited actions in response to COVID-19. We added over 500 products to List N. We worked on novel products, like long-term surface treatments, air treatments, put out protocols to address novel products to help registrants do studies and conduct studies to show efficacy of those products for combating Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID- 19. The next slide, our disinfectant policy update. We're starting to move in the direction of shifting resources away from COVID, or sort of reprioritizing those resources back to kind of our traditional work. And this is what that slide says. If you click on the next slide, the PRIA expedited COVID submissions and the chart here, this shows basically the total number of submissions and then what our pending was and completions, and you can ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 48 just see the incredible volume here graphically over the months from when the pandemic started to Antimicrobials Division's application and doing expedited review, in many cases, beating the PRIA timelines for COVID submissions. During FY 21, we completed around 500 -- or 440, I think was the number, expedited submissions, and we only have about 30 expedited submissions left in the queue. So we've been working towards that. And then the non-expedited COVID submissions, we continue to complete a number, and the pending are starting to come down. You can see the curve is starting to bend on the PRIA non-expedited COVID submissions, but there still are a decent number, about 100 or so that are in the pipeline remaining to complete for the non-COVID submissions. So on registration review, Slide 26, unbelievable amount of work. I mean, when you think about completing 682 draft risk assessments, which represents 94 percent of the 726 cases to complete by 2022, that just represents an enormous volume of work. We did 610 proposed interim decisions, so that's about at the 84 percent level, and then the final or interim decisions were at 7 6 percent complete. And this next slide shows on the -- that has ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 49 the preliminary work plan, final work plan, issuing the generic data call-in, the draft risk assessment, the proposed interim decision, the interim decision, and the label changes as needed. This sort of shows you the process of that registration review. And with that, those blue dots are where we do public comments. So, you know, transparency is key. So we take all of the data, all the new science that comes in, we do our review, we publish our draft risk assessment, we put that out for public comment, we put out our proposed mitigations, we put that out for public comment, we take that comment and we consider it and we arrive at a better decision. So the notion that somehow there's secret science happening is -- given this slide and given the process that we run, I don't think it's credible in any way, shape, or form. The other thing is the amount of data that comes in to review as part of registration review is pretty incredible. We ask for product chemistry data, product performance data, data to determine hazards in companion animals, toxicity data to determine hazards to humans, the residue chemistry data, applicator and post-application exposure studies to determine exposures for workers and homeowners, of course, the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 50 environmental fate data, and then the data to determine the hazard to the environment in general. So the types of studies, the number of studies that are submitted to support a registration action and the science that's done to make sure that a product is safe and effective is pretty incredible. And then on the next slide, you know, what do we do with that information and are we merely just rubber stamping industries' requests for pesticide registration? And to that I say that is also part of a false narrative that I've heard, and the reason why it's a false narrative is these are just the metrics. So since 2007, 26 conventional chemicals have been canceled and more than 7 0 percent of the conventional chemical decisions have required human health and/or ecological risk mitigation. That works out to about 30 percent for human health and 60 percent for ecological risks, but 70 percent had at least and required some form of ecological risk for human health, in addition to the 2 6 conventional chemicals that have been canceled. And, you know, we really understand the pressures that growers are under to provide food for our tables and to do that in a safe and effective manner. So when we do have new science that ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 51 demonstrates the inability to approve that chemical or to continue that chemical in the marketplace, the agency has worked with registrants where we have negotiated the cancellation generally. Once we show the science, the cancellation sort of happens and it tends to be amicable and understanding. We first work to reduce the mitigation -- or actually increase mitigation to reduce exposure, and if that doesn't work, then we go to cancellation. So some of the registration review risk reductions that are on our website include reductions to bystander exposure for aerial applications, improving worker protection, requiring additional modifications, like personal protective equipment, reducing application rates or eliminating uses altogether. Reducing application restrictions, use deletions, and increasing restricted entry intervals are some of the other mitigation that's applied. On the next slide, on reducing ecological risks of pesticides, Slide 31. Where applicable, we've also taken measures to reduce spray drift, reduce risk to plants developing resistance to herbicides, reducing potential risk to non-target organisms by establishing maximum annual rates, and then reducing risks to non-target organisms by ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 52 negotiating use deletions. And then, of course, the dietary risk reductions, basically including eliminating applications to soil and making sure that uptake isn't happening related to dietary risks. What's interesting is FDA just came out with its report showing that, you know, a high 90 percent of the products that they tested for had residues well below the tolerance level set by EPA for the vast majority of the food supply, in the 96 to 98 percent range. And I would refer you to the FDA report on that that recently came out. On some of the recent cancellations, pentachlorophenol and irgarol, these are just a couple of examples of what's recently been canceled in March and April. Next slide, chlorpyrifos, this was as a result of a court decision, but the agency did take steps to revoke all tolerances of chlorpyrifos. In this current administration, we intend to follow that with the Notice of Intent to Cancel. The tolerances for chlorpyrifos are revoked in -- February 28th of 2022, six months after we published. That was, in part, to address our World Trade Organization requirements to allow international partners time to ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 53 adjust. And we have received some objections to that final tolerance revocation rule and we are considering considering those objections and we'll work through the process related to chlorpyrifos. Next slide, glyphosate and paraquat. Here are some updates here, which I won't go into too much detail, but glyphosate is on everyone's radar. We have stood by our decision that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic. Paraquat, which is a tool that growers need for a lot of burn down and enables actually some ability to do no till was a -- but is also highly toxic to humans, we put in some additional mitigation there to allow that use and those limitations are listed here. Next slide for carbaryl and sulfuryl fluoride, we released the draft human health and risk assessment for the N-methyl carbamates insecticides, and then for sulfuryl fluoride, this is the reentry interval for when you're fumigating a home necessary to reduce pest infestations of homes, you know, are the devices that measure those readings appropriate and adequate, is the reentry interval appropriate given what we know, and so we've made adjustments to protect to the workers that are going in after and the homeowners that are going in after SF applications. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 54 Next slide on neonics. We've certainly done a lot on the neonics registration review piece. We've also, as I mentioned, released draft BEs for several of the neonics. So continue to watch this space on neonics. Next slide, rodenticides and pyrethroids. We did draft risk assessments for rodenticides, and throughout 2020 and 2021, we published numerous proposed interim decisions for pyrethroids, as well. The remaining pyrethroids are going to come out in 2022, as well as the rodenticides. We continue to advance science. Next slide. As mentioned earlier, we are focused on reducing animal testing where we can. This isn't just to reduce testing to reduce testing. This is to reduce duplicative testing. Where we have enough data and information to provide for toxicity and circumstances related to adverse effects, we are willing to wave those studies because we have enough data to prove our thesis in terms of the safety of that product, we will wave those tests. And so we've advanced a number of new guidance methodologies and models that help advancing cutting-edge science for how to review pesticide decisions. Next slide, on the PFAS containers, folks are ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 55 aware of this and our response to this particular aspect. Some good citizen science done by PEER up in Massachusetts uncovered the potential link of PFAS in pesticide containers. We worked with the State of Massachusetts and our own lab to test some of those products. It did appear that one of the products did have some PFAS in the pesticide, but that was related, and our hypothesis was it was related to the fluorinated containers. We worked with that particular company and they removed the fluorinated containers from their supply chain and used a different product. We've been working with industry to make sure they're examining their supply chains to remove any harmful PFAS chemicals from their supply chains, and then recently we put out a new protocol so that if others would like to test pesticides -- you know, some of this science again is cutting edge. There were really no good test methods out there. We had to develop our own, and we're asking that folks peer review that new method and uncover where pesticides may be contaminated with PFAS. But we continue to investigate that working with our other federal partners and get ahead of that. Pet collars have also been in the news. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 56 We've sought information from the various registrants related to pet products to make sure that our pets are safe. There have been a high number of incidents related to pet deaths and pet incidents that we are investigating. And as part of that, we put out a call and took public comment on the petition for revoking Seresto Pet Collars, in particular, which were one of the pet collars that were specifically in the news recently. Dicamba, also an issue that folks are closely tracking, a tool that growers use for pig weed and palmer amaranth and breakthrough weeds. This chemical has been reviewed a number of times. We've put a number of mitigation processes in place with regard to the labels. It's been through multiple litigation in the courts. And, recently, we had been examining the incidents that have been occurring with Dicamba and we have done a data call-in related to the registrants who own this product. In some cases, the Dicamba, in some states, there have not been reported incidents. In some states, the incidents have remained the same. And in some states, the incidents have been increasing. So we are working with our growers, state agencies, and other experts to evaluate the effectiveness and ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 57 the current incidents that have come up in some states within the United States and -- you know, the Lower 50 that have access to this product, and we are continuing to work through that issue. AEZ -- this is my last couple of slides -- for folks that aren't aware, the AEZ is a rule again that has worker protection at its heart. There were some revisions made. In 2020, that rule was litigated and the court stayed it until further notice. The 2015 WPS remains in effect as we continue to work through how we would like to address the litigants' claims in that case related to making sure that agriculture worker protection standards remain full and robust for workers. Next slide on certification of pesticide applicators rule, so very recently, I don't know if you saw the OPP update, we provided information that indicated we were going to seek an extension of the due date for states to submit and to approve -- for us to approve the new certification plans that were part of the new rule that was published. There were certainly many challenges along the way, COVID being one of them, some of the litigation or prior -- sort of statements from the prior administration on where we were headed with the certification rule. You know, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 58 the good news is we've completed the review of about 30 of the 60 state, territory, and tribal plans that need to be completed. So we have been doing a lot of work with the regions, with states to have them submitted. All the state plans were submitted on time, which is great. It's just we think we need a little bit more time to have those state plans be finally approved and run through the process given some of the workload issues and some of the issues associated with COVID. So we put out a notice recently indicating our desire to try to extend that deadline for states, given the pressures that they're under. And then my last slide is, as I mentioned, we continue to look for ways to improve the way we are approving pesticides, reevaluating pesticides. So we are a bit of a lean organization within OPP. These are some examples of the benefits of those lean principles, which include really empowering employees to find better ways to have processes implemented. And so we've launched new process improvement efforts and visual management. Some of the slides that I showed you at the beginning are some of that way that we're tracking your work visually to better track the new pesticide ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 59 active ingredients and address common issues with application packages, working with industry to provide feedback on where applications are not successful and the reasons why and creating a feedback loop so we can get better applications to make it into the system so that they are more successful in a more timely basis. So we can kind of bend the curve for the work that exists out there. Other examples, we've converted the Gold Seal Letters to fully electronic. We developed a device determination tracking system. We reduced the backlog of ecological incidents and the incident data system, and we continue to deploy IT modernization and digital transformation in our BPPD and Antimicrobials Division to make sure that we're using the best technology and the best processes to do the work that we need to do. So in sum, hopefully, that shows you a little bit of the work that OPP completed this past year. It's quite voluminous. It's quite impressive. And my hat and utter thanks goes to the incredibly dedicated OPP employees that have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic remotely, in amazing conditions to deliver sound science and products that growers need and that helps get food on the table for American citizens in a safe and effective way. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 60 So thank you so much for your time and thank you for listening to me be the biggest cheerleader and advocate for the staff here in OPP. So with that, we can go over to logistics. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Ed. This is Paul. I just want to -- it appears that we might actually be -- let's see here -- ahead of schedule and I'm wondering did you want to entertain any questions from the PPDC on your presentation or are -- you want to just go right into the (inaudible). If so, we might break a little bit early for lunch. It's up to you. I don't want to put you on the spot. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, we can maybe take a couple if we've got some time. FACILITATOR: Shannon, would you agree that we have a few minutes for some Q&A on the schedule? I'm looking at the time block. MS. JEWELL: Yes, that's right, that's right. Ed's session is scheduled to end at 12:45. FACILITATOR: Okay, and then that way we can leave it -- MR. MESSINA: Yeah, one thing I could probably talk about because it came up was the worker protection stuff and I can take a little deeper dive ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 61 on that as well since that was a question from the last session. So one of the things we do for worker protection is we have -- we fund about six cooperative agreements, they're called PERC, AFOP, HCN, CauseWay. It was about $4 million. Each of the funding vehicles result in implementation or outreach regarding pesticide safety, and it's heavily -- a heavy emphasis on occupational safety. So if folks have heard, we've done some worker protection standards. You know, that rule that's out there. Radio messaging and training for farmworkers, we've done it in Spanish as well in Spanish-speaking areas. So we have a great partnership with our cooperative agreements and the folks that implement that I know we're going to hear and one of the workgroup -- sub-workgroups was on this particular issue and so we'11 hear later today or tomorrow from that group on some recommendations for how the agency can even do a better job there. But there are lots of efforts, including the CNT and the worker protection standards that we focus on worker safety. FACILITATOR: Thanks, Ed. I'm not sure if you're tracking the chat, but if we go scroll up a little bit, Jasmine Brown had a question. It says, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 62 are registrants looking at PFAS in adjuvants. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. So we've asked that -- great question. We've asked that industry look at their entire supply chain for any PFAS potential chemicals. I'll note that if you've been following this space, the agency put out its recent new PFAS action plan, which has some definitions around PFAS and a plan for how we're going to address PFAS in general. Our small piece of that is making sure that there are no harmful PFAS chemicals in pesticides or the containers or any products that travel along with the pesticides. And we have had conversations with registrants who have come in who have uncovered PFAS compounds in their pesticides. It's a small, small handful. It's like one or two so far. And what's interesting is some of the places they found them were like bind -- to your point, was like a binding agent and it was only used in Europe. It wasn't used in the U.S. That's one of the examples. But, you know, when they were doing their due diligence to examine whether they had PFAS chemicals in their supply chain, that was an example of where it's not necessarily potentially the pesticide itself or the inactive or the inert ingredient, it's, you know, some other binding agent ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 63 or adjuvant that can be associated and travel along with that product. MS. BROWN: Thank you, Ed. Thank you, Paul, for asking that and thanks for answering that. We look forward to designing policy or strategy as more information comes out. MR. MESSINA: Thank you. FACILITATOR: Fantastic. Thanks. And we have a couple more, Ed, if that's okay with you. MR. MESSINA: Sure. FACILITATOR: One from Charlotte Sanson. So thanks for the update, Ed. Two questions. Question 1, where does OPP stand with regarding to staffing needs given the increasing workload and associated funding? Will additional staff be added and, if so, to which divisions will the head count be allocated? That's question one. I could pause there if you want to address that or I can give you the second half as well. MR. MESSINA: I'll take the first question. FACILITATOR: Okay. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. So as a, you know, federal official in the executive branch, I am almost prohibited from asking people to lobby Congress for resources. Right? So, that's a no-no. So don't ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 64 interpret anything I'm saying to say I'm asking for more resources. My goal in providing information about where we are is just to provide data to folks who are wondering, you know, how does OPP get all of the work that it gets done, and you saw the large volume with the resources it had and what does that resource picture look like. When asked, my standard reply is, I support the President's budget as a member of the executive branch and we will adjust and cope with the resources that we receive. And, again, the process improvements and IT developments are part of our way to improve the processes and efficiencies of the system to make the resources that we do get go the farthest that it can. So I will let you draw your own conclusions about the resources that OPP needs. I will say we are internally doing more workforce analysis or workload analysis and, to your second question, the new IT system gives us a window into what our workflow looks like in real time and what -- it actually uses some predictive analytics to take all of the registration packages and things that we need to do that are in- house currently, matches it up with the resources and tells us in the future where our trend lines might be ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 65 heading for renegotiations and decisions and completion dates and days over PRIA. So we are laser-focused on those processes and the IT is designed to help us see that and have a window and visual management into that. We're happy to do demos where needed. The Antimicrobials Division, the Pollution Prevention Division, and the front end processing system are connected to this new CRM, or customer relations management software system, and we continue to develop that. You know, some of the other technology improvements that we're looking at that I didn't mention like, the ECSF builder trying to get the OPPEL label builder launched, trying to -- and it's not just to increase our efficiency internally, it's really to increase transparency, as well. So as we collect this metadata and we're able to more rapidly search for ourselves, you know, how many products are effective on this particular pest on strawberries and we kind of linked that up with PPLS, that's not as smooth as it could be. And so as we collect this data in a more manageable way, we'll be able to provide that information to industry and to the public in the way of dashboards and searchability for our systems and the data that we have in-house for the pesticides ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 66 we have and the products and the pests that they address. So hopefully, that answered your question, Charlotte. FACILITATOR: Thanks, Ed. Can you see Mano's question there? I'm not sure if you're actually looking at the chat window. I just want to make sure. MR. MESSINA: Let's see. Thanks, Ed. What resources can change my (inaudible) perspective... DR. BASU: And, Ed, it is a similar question to Charlotte had. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. DR. BASU: So I think you have answered it pretty much. We can move on to the next questions. Thank you. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. I'll add that, you know, as the beginning of my presentation showed, there are some new initiatives, including environmental justice, climate change, Endangered Species Act. So as we try to bring on these new priorities, the question is, you know, where will we refocus. The good news is that the administration is giving thought to where they are asking for these new priorities. They are also asking what additional resources you might need to do these priorities. And so the hope is, depending on the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 67 congressional budget that gets passed, there could potentially be some additional resources provided to address the new priorities that the administration has articulated. So that's a little bit more of a refined answer to your specific question, Mano, hopefully. DR. BASU: Thank you very much. FACILITATOR: Thanks, Ed. Do you see Amy Liebman's question? MR. MESSINA: Amy — FACILITATOR: It would have been right after Mano's. Let me see here, thanks for the update, I'm glad to see climate and environmental justice in the strategic plan. Is there a reason the groupings do not specifically mention workers and handlers. MR. MESSINA: I think we consider workers and handlers, and hopefully that came off in my chat as part of the environmental justice piece. I would say Amy, if you do think that the agency's strategic plan should have more specific mention around that, I would encourage you to submit comments to the draft plan. And you can do so by submitting comments on EPA's website. The comment period is open for the strategic plan. But for our purposes for OPP as it translates down into our strategy document, I certainly see that ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 68 connection. Hopefully my -- I think my slides hopefully represented it. If they don't, I'm happy to talk offline about how I can do a better job, sort of, marrying those topics up and actually having the slides reflect that. FACILITATOR: And we probably had time for one more. Do you see Cathy Tortorici's question? MR. MESSINA: When will you be coming back to NIMFS, how you are going to handle chlorpyrifos in the ESA Section 7 perspective? I'm not sure I understand that question specifically, given that the uses will potentially, if the process runs through as part of the NOIC and after the objections process from the revocation of the tolerance so that those uses would be canceled. So, Cathy, do you want to maybe refine your question? FACILITATOR: And, Cathy, I'm not sure if you're on mute or not. We don't hear you. MR. MESSINA: I mean, presumably, again, there's many steps that need to happen, but the first thing we've done is we've revoked tolerances. The next thing we would do after the objections process and making decisions about the credibility of those objections would be a notice of intent to cancel and ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 69 so those food uses would be canceled. So there would be, at least for those uses, those uses would disappear and that would address the ESA perspective. The nonfood uses are also going through registration review, but I imagine that's going to be delayed until we work out the process related to the food uses and devote the same team's resources to responding to the multiple objections that have been in place. But there is some work happening in parallel related to the nonfood uses as well and sort of reevaluating that as part of registration review. MS. TORTORICI: Can you hear me now? MR. MESSINA: Yes. MS. TORTORICI: Okay. MR. MESSINA: Did that answer your question? MS. TORTORICI: Can you hear me now, Paul? FACILITATOR: Yes, we can. Yes, I can hear you. MR. MESSINA: Yes. FACILITATOR: I can hear you fine. MS. TORTORICI: You can hear me? Okay, great. Sorry, I've been having difficulty with this this morning and I apologize to you all for the delay. The reason I'm asking this question, Ed, is that when we've talked to your staff earlier on in ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 70 this process, you were still making the decision, and what you do from the human health standpoint -- we're unclear how it then affects the environmental standpoint from the standpoint of listed species. And son we just need to hear from you, because, as, you know, we're in the middle of a reinitiation action on our 2017 biological opinion that involves chlorpyr if os. So it's important that we get a clear signal from EPA on what they intend to do as we continue those conversations on what to do regarding that opinion. So I'm just putting that out there as a flag that there was some confusion earlier about this and we want to make sure that we understand what you guys are doing, and then the direction you're taking in relationship to that biological opinion. MR. MESSINA: Okay, yeah, appreciate it. And I'm happy to talk offline and make sure our staff for getting you the information you need. I think the issue there is we do need to work through the objections, right? So for me to tell you, what's going to happen next, I want to be respectful of the objections process before I'd sort of say, you know, what direction we're heading. MS. TORTORICI: Sure. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 71 MR. MESSINA: So we'll make sure staff reach out and connect with you on that. MS. TORTORICI: Thank you. I appreciate it because we're under a court-ordered deadline and I want to make sure that what we're saying in that biological opinion is consistent with what you all are deciding regarding this chemical. Thank you. MR. MESSINA: Great. Thanks, Cathy. What chemical pesticides were tested for in the well water testing assessment. I'm not sure I know all the specific chemicals for that. So, Jeannie, we'11 take that back and Shannon can provide an answer. There's so many pesticide classes. What is the process to identify which pesticide to test for in well water, especially... yeah, we'll take that one back. Mily, yeah, paraquat is an in interesting one and we could we could spend a whole session on paraquat. And, you know, what I personally struggle with paraquat is unfortunately it is being used and I'm not -- I'm basically just parroting what the incident data shows, I'm not endorsing this, or I don't -- I almost don't want to call it out, but the deaths related to paraquat are largely suicide ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 72 attempts and suicides using that -- unfortunately, using the product. So a lot of our mitigation has centered around making paraquat unavailable for people to use it in that manner. And it's the way the containers are formed, it's selling it and not selling it in small amounts. So that's where a lot of the mitigation revolves around. It's also, you know, highly toxic and there's certain mitigation around that. But when you think of the farmworker, unfortunately, and there are farmworkers using it, who are living in conditions where they've sort of reached the end and they've made a decision to use that chemical for ending their life. And it's very unfortunate; it's troubling; it's an emotional issue. So I would like to continue to talk about it. I think that the team did an excellent job in really balancing those risks and the risks and the needs for growers who are -- who, if you use this product as intended and in a safe manner, it's an effective product. It's just where that misuse is happening that's causing some issues associated with that product, and not to minimize it or brush it off, it's very serious and our team I know gave a lot of thought to how to mitigate that harm and that ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 73 potential. So thank you for that question and happy to continue to talk about paraquat, Mily, if you'd like. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Can I just give a response to that a little bit? MR. MESSINA: Yeah, sure. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: In our community — FACILITATOR: We have to be really quick. We have to be quick on this, okay? MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: I understand, but this is this is about lives -- the livelihood of farmworkers and in this -- I mean, we have seen much more and we have not seen as many as has been talked about, in terms of suicide or anything like that, it's more of the way it's been used and misused and why we're so concerned that you're still providing the permission of the use of paraquat, and this is why there's a lawsuit, you know. So we can go on and on, but for the purpose of I just want to bring it up that it's going to continue harming workers and the communities around there, any agriculture, and there's many more I wish that we would have more enforcement instead of just saying, you know, the excuse of it's people misusing it, when it's companies misusing when they're ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 74 applying the chemicals and they use of is -- it's just harming. Thank you. MR. MESSINA: Thank you, Mily, for those comments. I really appreciate it for this important topic. Okay. So, Paul, I will kick it over to you and Shannon to walk through the agenda and then close us out before lunch break. Thanks, everyone, for your time. FACILITATOR: Fantastic. Thank you, Ed. Thanks very much for your presentation. Obviously, considering the scientific and technical and administrative and regulatory challenges that your team faces it's no wonder you're very proud of these accomplishments. So thanks very much. Okay, let me just shift gears real quick, and just join Ed and Jake and Shannon and the entire EPA team in welcoming everybody today. My name is Paul Aninos. I'm joined by Sarah Chadwick. We're both with App Associates, a company that's been serving EPA's mission for the past three decades, including the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. So we're happy to be here supporting your meeting today. You may remember us from the May meeting. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 75 and this meeting is patterned almost exactly like the May 2021 PPDC meeting. We will try to adhere to the publicized agenda, which I'm sure you've been able to download off of the PPDC website, and basically we'll adhere to the time blocks, especially when we are going to zero in on the public comment period, I believe starting at 4:30 today. So we've got to get through today's agenda by 4:30. I will help everybody -- nudge everybody along on that. A note to the PPDC members and the presenters today, the presenters, of course, know already that we are aiming to leave plenty of time at the end of their presentation for PPDC members to ask questions, make comments, et cetera, because the whole purpose of today is to get the reactions and feedback from the PPDC. So I'll make sure that happens with friendly time alerts to our presenters, but this is just another friendly reminder to all of our presenters to leave that gap at the end for some good PPDC Q&A. And then just at a very high level, in terms of the agenda review, as you know, again, the agenda is published. So you've all seen it. I won't go line by line through it. We'll have four workgroup presentations. The workgroups have been working hard for a long, long time to develop these ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 76 recommendations. You saw draft recommendations six, months ago in the May meeting. So here we have the four workgroup final presentations over the next two days . Today, we'll hear from one of those, that's the farmworker and clinician training workgroup. Tomorrow, we'll hear from the remaining three. Also, over the two days, we have scheduled three special presentations, and today we have two of those and tomorrow is one. The two today is on the sensor program and on risk communications and the one tomorrow is the introduction to good laboratory practices. And then we conclude both days with a 30- minute public comment period. And then the final day we conclude with Ed's kind of looking forward comments and discussion. So let me turn it over to Sarah for a moment because we want to just make sure you kind of understand how the technology is operating here to support the meeting. And I'll turn it over to Sarah for a quick review of those items. FACILITATOR 2: Thanks, Paul. As Paul mentioned my name is Sarah Chadwick and I am helping provide technology support for the meeting both today and tomorrow. While I know many of you are already ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 77 familiar with Webex, I wanted to review a few reminders for PPDC members. First, we recommend that you connect to this meeting using computer audio and a headset. If you need to change your audio method at any time', during the meeting, you can go to the audio and video menu that's at the very top of your screen. You may also turn on video if you would like, but it is not a requirement, so to turn on video, you can use the button that's on the bottom of your screen near the mute and unmute button. And on the topic of mute and unmute, please mute yourself when you are not actively speaking. You can tell if you are on mute if your microphone icon is red with a slash through it. If your microphone is green, it means that you are not muted and we can hear you. Lastly, an important reminder about using the chat. PPDC members, please select everyone from the drop-down menu when you are sending chat messages. And this option is all the way down at the bottom of the drop-down options. So you may need to scroll a little bit, but it is there. Please do not use the all attendees option. Again, the option you want is everyone. And this will ensure that the other PPDC ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 78 members and the public are able to see your message. So those are all the reminders I have, but feel free to send me a message if you are having any technology issues throughout the meetings. Back to you, Paul. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Sarah. Thanks very much. And I think we actually are ready to take the lunch break. There is a 30-minute lunch break. If I can conclude my remarks quickly, it will be 32 minutes for lunch. But what we're going to suggest to everybody that's logged in to this call, this meeting, is don't leave the meeting, don't X out of the meeting and then try to log back in, just go on mute and stop your video according to the instructions that Sarah just gave. That way, we can't see you or hear you. And then set a timer or an alarm or something on your phone to return a couple minutes before 1:15, if possible. That's 1:15 Eastern time. I'm sorry, I realize we have people from many different time zones. But please return a few minutes early -- a couple minutes early from your lunch break so that we can start properly at 1:15. And that's everything we have for you. So I think you've earned three extra minutes for your lunch break. MR. MESSINA: Thanks, Paul. See everybody in ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 79 half an hour. FACILITATOR: Yep. MS. JEWELL: Thank you. FACILITATOR: Thank you. (Lunch break.) FACILITATOR: Okay, so I think we're back and I hope we're back. Ed, I think before we get started we were going to try something with the PPDC this time around using a polling system to capture agreement on the recommendations. Did you want to kind of review your philosophy on that for a moment. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, sure. So generally the FACA rules are not entirely prescriptive on how to record consensus, which is kind of what we're arriving for here. Given that we're virtual, the way we had proposed to do it today -- so we're going to have the presentation, and after the presentation, in order to sort of establish for the record what the PPDC recommendation is to EPA on whether to adopt or not the sub-workgroup's recommendation, what I'm going to do is after the presentation, I'm going to ask the PPDC if there's a motion to approve the recommendations. I will then see if there's a motion. I will ask for a second to the motion. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 80 Once there's a second to that motion, I will ask if there are any clarifying questions or a discussion that the PPDC would like to have around the presentation that was just given and the document that is in the site, the full report, and I'll turn it over to Paul and Sarah, and they're going to conduct a polling piece, which will look for consensus or majority vote to recommend that the report be submitted to EPA, and if we need to record any dissenting opinions either on the actual report or pieces of the report. So we're really hoping for a full and open discussion and questions regarding the reports and the presentations that we're going to be getting over the next couple of days. So basically, I'll ask for a motion, a second, clarifying questions, and then we'll take a vote on whether the full PPDC recommends that the sub- workgroup' s documents and materials be forwarded on to EPA. FACILITATOR: Excellent. So it's a little bit of a twist from from what we did last time, so just giving the PPDC members like a heads-up. And our first -- right out of the gate, we're starting with the farmworkers and clinician training workgroup. And so we will be kind of cutting our ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 81 teeth on this process, you know, with this first workgroup. So bear with us as we make it through. I'm sure once we get through this one, the other ones will be -- you know, we'11 have the process down a little bit more superiorly. So I wanted to kick off this segment of our agenda, which is the farmworker and clinician training workgroup report out. I'm going to introduce the co- chairs and the first speaker in just a moment, but just as a heads up since we're going to kind of chop up this presentation into the two segments, one is the farmworker training and the other is the clinician training. And we're going to go through the presentation on farmworker training first and then we're going to -- followed by the Q&A, you know, so the PPDC members can ask questions. Then we'll follow that with the clinician training and it's Q&A, and then we'11 follow the entire workgroup segment with the voting and polling that Ed just described. So that's kind of the order of events. So just as a reminder, the co-chairs of the farmworker and clinician training workgroup are Mily Trevino-Sauceda from Alianza Nacional de Campesinas; Also Carolyn Schroeder and Steve Schaible, both with the Office of Pesticide Programs. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 82 I believe kicking off today's presentation is Patsy Laird from Syngenta Corporation, and she's also a member of the American Association of Pesticide Safety Educators. So if Patsy is ready, I think we're ready. MS. LAIRD: Thanks, Paul. So I'm just going to take a couple of minutes to introduce a quick overview of our recommendations. First off, starting with the members of the workgroup. As you can see, it's a pretty diverse workgroup representing a lot of nonprofits, a few industry people. So it's very, very diverse. And -- sorry. The charge questions, you would all be familiar with from last spring and I guess last fall, but we're really talking about reporting requirements for PRIA set-asides for farmworker protection activities, specifically evaluating the appropriateness and effectiveness of farmworker protection activities, engaging stakeholders into decisions to fund such activities, and EPA reaching out to stakeholders. We did make a change before this spring meeting. The original charge questions referred to workers, but we did, as a group, decide to narrow the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 83 focus a little bit to farmworkers. Oh, sorry. Not used to this program. Little tiny things. Okay. So I want to say a couple of things here. One, these recommendations represent a consensus across, like I said, a very diverse group. And the consensus is built on whoever spoke up in the meetings. So we didn't ever do any official polling or voting and not everyone was comfortable speaking up. So these are our best, in my opinion and I think Mily and others would agree, this is as good a consensus as we could come to. For the farmworker training recommendations in particular, these recommendations may address more than one of the charge questions. Some of them are going to be really easy, quick to implement. Some others might be hard. And most of them, once implementation begins, we foresee that they would be ongoing over an extended period of time. So, Mily Trevino-Sauceda is going to be presenting the farmworker training recommendations. Thanks, Mily. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Thank you. Patsy. Yeah, thank you to all the group -- workgroup that was involved. There were many, many meetings, and some of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 84 them I could not participate myself, but I was in tune with all the notes and then I also provided my own recommendations. And we have set up in terms of the highest priority and then not that they're not priority, some of the recommendations but we do have them towards the end. And the first recommendation is it's important that EPA involved farmworkers, farmworker organizations and worker protection -- the WPS trainers and EPA-funded projects that design, develop, review, and evaluate WPS training materials, and this is including membership on advisory committees. I'm going to read them, and then if there's -- for anyone from the group that will like to share a little bit more, you can do so, but just let me know. Number two, incorporate evidence-based approaches to design and evaluate effective training. And number three is require that farmworker training be provided in an appropriate engaging format and revise the funding mechanism to support development of training materials for diverse crop systems and farmer communities, and this means culturally and geographically relevant. And we explained a little bit. It's very, very important to work with in the cultural context of the workers, you ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 85 know. How they understand, how they really see things or not, because some of them also might not be able to read or write or really understand the language if it's in Spanish. Results in better retention of material presented. This information, Number 3, is in the next slide. We're going to give more recommendations onto that or more explanation. Can we go to the next slide, please? JEANNIE: Can I make a quick comment? This is Jeannie -- MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Yes. JEANNIE: from the farmworker association. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Yes, Jeannie. JEANNIE: I just wanted to stress that in that previous slide, that when it talks about involving farmworkers, I want to stress the fact of farmworkers need to be involved from the very beginning and not later on in later stages, but in the very beginning. They need to be part of the decision-making process as full participants. Because of their personal experience, you can't get any better than farmworkers' personal experiences. And they need to be involved in all steps of the process. That hasn't always happened in the past. And then, lastly, you have a wealth of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 86 farmworker organizations that have been involved in this that have been working with farmworkers for years and decades. So you have a tremendous resource here with all of the farmworker organizations. So please use that expertise. Thanks. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDO: Thank you, Jeannie. Thank you. And this means that -- at the same time that training is provided in language the workers understand, so we're going to have workers participate. It's not the same thing here in this section. We're saying that it's already required, but most of the time it's very difficult to put it in practice. Why? Because many workers have told us that, at times, they are only given video to watch, and if they have any questions, they might not understand certain things, that's it, you're trained So on (b), training method considers the literacy level of the workers, and this is what I was talking about earlier and this is what Jeannie is mentioning because workers themselves can let us know -- let EPA know how can they go about in terms of the training, how can materials be prepared in a way that it will get through in a very appropriate way culturally, also a specific way, and uses more images and fewer words. That means that if people cannot ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 87 read or write, you could be showing information, but people will not be able to understand what's in front of them unless they have images. And the words are important, but at the same time, if you're giving a training, you can go and repeat what is there and the image will be giving more information. C)It's saying training acknowledges the reality of some farmworker situations, that the training really focuses on what is going on with workers in the workplace and so that the workers can really ask questions, what can they do if this happens or what if this other thing is happening, and all this gives workers more of an idea of what options do they have. D)Training incorporates relevant crop pesticides and types of application instead of a just one size fits all approach, and this is one training, if it's done in a certain way, that doesn't mean that it works with everybody, and we have seen that in our own work. We have had a lot of lessons learned where sometimes we train people -- for example, here in California, we train people in one area and then we realize that training people in another region of California, it's not as relevant. So try not to see ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 88 it as one size fits all. Then (E) is training takes into account cultural characteristics of the workers, and this is what I was just talking about earlier. Next. Next slide. JEANNIE: Can I make a quick comment again? MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Yes, quick. JEANNIE: This is Jeannie again. I just want to say that it's really important just because farmworkers might have limited literacy ability does not mean that they're not bright and intelligent and very knowledgeable. So I think it's really important for people that are creating these trainings to recognize and acknowledge the knowledge and intelligence level of the workers and make sure that they are involved in the process. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Yes, yes. Thank you, Jeannie. This is very, very important and thank you for highlighting that. We have, in our own organizations, like Jeannie's, the Farmworker Association, and Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, we have many, many farmworker women and their families, which are also farmworkers, that are -- you know, literacy level is low, but very, very smart people and very experienced in terms of what they do. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 89 So it's important that we don't we don't ask -- we're talking about people not knowing how to read or write, that doesn't mean that they're not capable or not intelligent. So thank you. So number 4 as a recommendation is it's important to conduct a pre-training needs assessment and follow up on any earlier needs assessments if they have been done before, prior to developing requests for proposals (RFPs). Why? Because it's more related to -- let's not see it within the agency just perspective, but in terms of the field perspective when you're trying to put together the request for proposals. Number 5 is include farmworkers, farmworker organizations, and WPS trainers in needs assessments, also, as part of the people that could be helpful in putting together the RFP. Number 6 is test effectiveness of different methods of communicating to employers the benefits of WPS training for them and their workers. Next slide, please. And I'll try to hurry up because I know it's -- we have very little time. Other training recommendations are consider requiring EPA-funded programs that are focused on serving farmworker community and that have advisory ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 90 committees to serve 25 up to 50 percent for farmworkers and provide adequate to result in their full participation. And there's different ways and we can talk about that later in terms of how -- in terms of get their -- the support that they need. We're working, we're getting support from our organizations to be part of this, but workers do not. Number 2 is commit to continuing, regular quarterly meetings with farmworker organizations to receive feedback on farmworker issues related to WPS training. I'm just going to continue reading. Three, target farmworker groups when seeking proposals for WPS training materials. We need to target the farmworker groups. It's so important. Four, require transparency from funded programs in the development of training materials. And is there anything that either Jeannie or I or the group wants to say -- could we go to the next slide -- thank you. Number five, require programs that serve farmworkers to have farmworkers evaluate their activities. Encourage or require refresher training for non-licensed trainers. This is so, so important. We ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 91 have had a lot of feedback from workers in terms of the non-licensed trainers. Number 7, emphasize that (a) training is to be conducted where workers are comfortable and (b) questions and discussions are to be encouraged during the training. So people will ask questions and people will have discussions if they're in a very comfortable and safe place, and this is related to how people will feel at times asking certain questions if certain people are there that might not like what they ask. Number 8, increase WPS training for pesticides inspectors to better equip them for enforcement. This is so crucial for us. We need to make sure that inspectors are really trained to really understand how to do follow-up, the investigations and also the enforcement. Number 9, assess the level of compliance with WPS training, and this is an ongoing, but possibly out of scope for this workgroup. Next, I think that was it. JEANNIE: Can I make a quick comment about number 7? If you could go back to the previous slide number. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Yes. JEANNIE: Number 7 is really important. I was ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 92 with a group that was taking a training at a local nursery in Central Florida, an ornamental plant nursery, and while the video was being -- well, first of all, the owner of the nursery really downplayed the importance of showing the video. It was basically a routine -- a thing that he said he felt compelled -- you know, he was required to do. But the people that were watching the training had to stand up in a small space and the training was, I think, like 20 minutes long. So they were not comfortable standing in one place having to watch the video. So they were fidgety. And then while the training was going on some equipment at the nursery was started up so that the sound drowned out parts of the training. And for the trainings to be effective they have to be given with serious consideration to the people that are taking the training. I know that that is -- I think that needs to be stressed, too, as part of the training, that trainings need to be conducted in a way that is conducive to people learning and listening to them. Because in this particular situation and it happens other places as well, the workers don't know why they're taking the training, they don't give any context to it. There was nobody there to answer ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 93 questions. And, again, key parts of the training were drowned out by loud noises in the facility. And I was there with them watching the training and it was very uncomfortable to be standing in one, small area with, I think, about 15 other people having to stand up and watch the whole thing. So that's really important. Thanks. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: So the environment is very, very important and that means it's not just thinking that workers are going to be comfortable, but at the same time, if people are being trained in 115 degrees and they're outside, is there shade, is there many other things aside from what Jeannie is talking about. So, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Jeannie. So I don't know, we can -- are we going to open up for questions at this point in time, Paul? MS. BROWN: I have a comment. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Uh-huh. FACILITATOR: So I'm sorry, who was that? MS. BROWN: Oh, Jasmine Brown. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Jasmine? MS. BROWN: Yeah. FACILITATOR: Jasmine, are you on the workgroup? MS. BROWN: No. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 94 MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: No. FACILITATOR: Okay. This portion of the agenda -- feel free to put your thought into the chat, but this portion of the agenda, we're transitioning very rapidly to the PPDC. The PPDC, a week ago, received all these recommendations and much more thorough, you know, explanations of those and have had that opportunity to review these recommendations. Ms. JEWELL: Paul, I'm so sorry to interject, Paul. Jasmine isn't on the workgroup, but she as a PPDC member, yeah. FACILITATOR: Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. Okay. MS. BROWN: No worries. FACILITATOR: I don't know everybody's name and which workgroup they're on. Yes. So the answer is we're opening for Q&A to the PPDC members. And, Jasmine, you're number one. MS. BROWN: I am fine putting my comment in the chat box. On the previous slide of recommendations, I just wanted to point out when I'm interviewing workers to see if they've received training, it's -- one of their comments -- I mean, some of these workers don't like to be stopped or taken out of work for very long to be interviewed. And so there's quite a few requirements that you have ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 95 to check for and ask them and I try to get it done within 10 or 15 minutes with them. But just to be cognizant of that, when we're putting forth these recommendations that, yeah, we want them to be comfortable in things, but a lot of times they don't actually want to stop work to -- but the one thing I have seen is that everyone -- the consistency of like central notification posting areas and stuff, all workers know that these sites should have one of those. And so I think -- I don't really like the one-size-fits-all approach, but that consistency has been super effective. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: When you say consistency, what are you talking about? Maybe I can also remind everybody that most of the time, if workers are going to be paid so they can respond, if you're an inspector, they'll be more than willing, and if they're not going to be blacklisted after saying if there's any issues happening in the workplace. They don't like to be stopped because they're afraid to talk, they're afraid to be pointed out as you're a whistleblower or whatsoever. Most of the time that is what's going on. And this is what -- when we're talking about it's so important that inspectors are being more equipped for enforcement and to really ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 96 understand that in asking people in front of their bosses questions about what is going on, can you tell us if there's any issues or whatsoever, workers will not want to speak with you, not even with us. And they've told us before don't ask us questions when we're in the workplace, we can talk after work, we can talk any other time, and if the company does not know that I'm sharing information about what's going on. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Mily. And thank you, Jasmine. Again, we're entertaining questions from the PPDC only and I noticed Liza, you have a question here, are we asking questions regarding the recommendations and any comments should be added to the chat. I think this would be a perfect opportunity since we have an interaction going on here, is to limit this to questions and then throw comments into the chat because we'll capture all of that. But this is a good chance to ask a question for clarification relating to the specific recommendations. And, Liza, if you -- I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your first name, "Leeza" or Liza, but if you have a question, I' 11 let you go, and then Joe will follow. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: Thank you. I just ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 97 have a comment, so thinking about our time, I will add it to the chat. So thank you for the clarification. FACILITATOR: Okay, thanks very much. Joseph, you have a question. DR. GRYZWACZ: Yeah, thank you very much for that. Thanks for the work of this group. Really my question is primarily, you know, there's a lot of variables out there that that that contribute to farmworkers being very distinctive, including crop variation and regional variation and that sort of thing, you know, clearly, that all can't be done sort of simultaneously. So did this workgroup come up with a more finite number of attributes to begin with in terms of how to essentially tailor some of the different trainings to make them more useful to move away from the one size fits all? MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Well, we did talk about different ways of how some of our groups -- some farmworker organizations groups have done. We use theater, we use art, we use different things to be able to do trainings. So there's different ways. Not until -- I mean, we did give -- we did talk about that. It's not placed in here, but I don't know. Amy, did you want to add a little bit more on this . ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 98 MS. LIEBMAN: I did. So, Joe, we did think a lot about different components, such as, you know, the geographic or the region, the types of crops, and we also thought about sort of the -- one thing that we're concerned about is also the type of pesticide. So there's a lot of very specific things that we talked about. We also did talk about sort of the evidence- based practices being incorporated into the training. So when there are, for example, NIOSH-funded studies that show a type of training being more effective than another type of training. We want that to be incorporated as we move forward. So we're continually adding the evidence. So we did talk very specifically about ways to make the training appropriate and relevant to workers. DR. GRYZWACZ: Great. Thanks for that, Amy. And it really gets to the heart of my question and that is, I think these recommendations are great, but because there's so much work in that end being able to begin with sort of a targeted set of items. You know, so what goes against advocated practices? Well, the precepts of humoral medicine, for example, would be a good one that operates at counter-purposes with washing your hands or taking a shower immediately after work. So being able to address that element in ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 99 training, I would argue is essential. You know, the fact that piece rate compensation is why they don't want to take time out to answer questions, much less do something else again, that's something that needs to be taken head-on in an effective training kind of system. So I would really encourage this workgroup to maybe identify some low-hanging fruit as far as where to get started on some specific items and then we can add to it over time. MS. BUHL: Thanks for that. I'd like to add something. I was a member of this workgroup as well and I'm also a deputy director of PERC, which is one of the cooperative agreement Ed mentioned earlier on. We developed the EPA WPS video. Early on in the cooperative agreement, we did a big broad needs assessment and we heard this same feedback that more tailored pieces of training material would be more effective and, in fact, we identified something like eight sectors of vineyards, row crops, orchards, greenhouses, but the resources were not sufficient to do that many training pieces, at least in video. But other organizations have stepped up and created one for greenhouses, created different versions that are available. Just sharing that. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 100 But I get your question how many, because we could certainly do hundreds of pieces of training material that were very, very tailored, but how many could we do that meet the broadest possible needs. FACILITATOR: Yes, thank you, Kaci. PPDC members, other questions for the workgroup? (No response.) FACILITATOR: We will need to transition quickly to the clinician training, but -- and I'm also prepared, given the fact that we had to split into two and that we have voting at the end, I'm prepared that we will go a little bit over on our time allocation for this, which means, Kaci, you might be thinking about a reduced schedule on your end. Just giving everybody a heads-up. MS. BUHL: Understood. FACILITATOR: Okay, thank you. DR. GRYZWACZ: I didn't get in the queue, but I'll just simply throw out that I think these recommendations are really very important. I mean, a group recently released some results that suggest and totally reinforce what this group is acting for, that is, engaged and interactive and culturally and contextually tailored is the only ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 101 results that produce behavior change and knowledge retention. Unfortunately, the video as it's currently created results in changes in knowledge, but that knowledge, just like any college student who's taken -- who's studied for an exam, they dump that knowledge shortly thereafter and it shows up in the EPA. So I really want to reinforce the importance of these recommendations. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Thank you. MS. LAIRD: Paul, if it's okay with you, I'm going to go ahead and introduce Amy Liebman from Migrant Clinicians Network who's going to be talking us through the clinician training recommendations. FACILITATOR: Perfect. Thank you. MS. LAIRD: Go ahead. Knock it out, Amy. MS. LIEBMAN: Next slide. So we had a lot of discussion about ways to best train clinicians and the focus on conditions is really important because the EPA is very reliant on the reports from clinicians so that they understand what's happening once the registered pesticides are put in use and what the health consequences of them ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 102 are. So it's really important that clinicians have an understanding of and be able to recognize and manage pesticide poisonings and that also includes understanding how to report them. So our first recommendation comes to really recommending that we have a national pesticide incident reporting system since that data is so critical to inform and evaluate any of the worker protection activities that are going on, and recognizing that there might be some challenges to getting that done immediately, we do think it can be done, but in the near term at a minimum we are looking to establish some very standardized case definitions for at least acute pesticide poisoning incidences and then in the long term using those definitions as part of a national incident reporting system. Walter's going to speak later about a sensor system, but just so everyone knows there is no national system right now that people report to. It's a very state-by-state basis and not all states require it and not all states have a surveillance system. Looking for ways to expand and improve incident reporting, encouraging interagency collaboration. The EPA along, with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 103 Occupational Safety and Health, are -- it's very important that they continue to work together to address these recommendations. Next slide. We also wanted to make sure that when we're looking at clinician training that we're targeting a wide range of clinicians that are going to be involved in anything to do with pesticide safety. So that means that we're really defining that clinician very broadly from the community health worker all the way up until the specialized clinician, or any individual that may be involved in the health-related concerns regarding pesticides. And then, also, sort of we're thinking about clinicians and we know that clinicians serve all kinds of people and different types of groups that are exposed, really thinking about what are the common elements that can be relevant through the clinical lens, and then, you know, figuring out how to make it relevant broadly to clinicians, but this is also going to sort of go into a next recommendation that in addition to sort of broadly thinking about all the clinicians, we also want to make sure that we're tailoring it to clinicians that are serving certain occupation groups. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 104 Next slide. So one of the really important pieces, we know that workers -- all kinds of workers, from farmworkers to handlers to anyone using pesticides as part of their work, the occupation becomes very important in the recognition and management a pesticide poisonings. So the idea that for a clinician to understand the importance of occupation and pediatric cases or cases involving a child being exposed, making sure that that parental occupation is taken into consideration and really looking at evaluating our PRIA-funded activities related to clinician training so that occupation is included. And there were several examples of how to do that, emphasizing some case studies, providing accurate materials. The Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings at the EPA, I believe it's in sixth edition, but it is a great resource for clinicians, but it does always need to be up-to-date, and creating apps with specific pesticide training. Again, sort of that training -- there's a basic part of clinician training that focuses on history taking. Thinking about occupation and thinking about environmental screening and history taking are really key components and being able to ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 105 recognize and manage pesticide poisonings. Next slide. Another really important point, and just like the farmworkers, to really make sure that clinicians are consulted and we get their input, including with various pilots and testing of training materials so that they can be a part of designing and evaluating interventions. I think we can sit in a room and think of great interventions for clinicians, but if they're not involved and not piloting it and not giving feedback, it may not be as effective and it may not be used. And so it's really important to take that in mind. Also really thinking about the clinician's time and other challenges, recognizing that we might -- the recommendations that we make for clinicians, we really need to recognize that they may not have a ton of time with patients. So what are the other parts of training that need to happen? How can they help sort of work with outreach workers or other groups? And then what is the most effective material that -- for clinicians and also thinking about what are sources, you know, that they currently use that you can weave in pesticide-related information and education about. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 106 Next slide, please. This was to talk about a lot, increasing the support and coordination and outreach to promote awareness about reporting among clinicians. So this goes back to one of our earlier recommendations, but really in order for clinicians to be able to take part in any kind of reporting system, they need to be made aware of that system. So if it's a requirement in your state -- and I believe there are about 31 states that require clinicians to report pesticide poisonings, clinicians actually need to know that and they need to know where they're supposed to report, and then also -- and that's going to also involve sort of looking at sort of how the current electronic health records and how health electronic health records systems are set up and also really understanding the International Classification of Disease, the ICD codes, and perhaps even expanding some of those codes, but really sort of making sure that clinicians are are aware and know how and where to report. Next slide. Target and incentivize clinicians and staff and federally qualified health centers to receive training and resources on pesticide-related health issues. So there are several ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 107 thousand sites across the country where federally qualified health centers and their clinics serve patients. By and large, they're serving -- they're the safety net health centers. They serve our underserved populations, including farmworkers who are an overexposed population to pesticides. So they're a group of clinicians in particular that's really important to make sure that they receive training and they receive the resources on pesticide-related health issues. So wanting to make sure that when we' re looking at PRIA-funded activities that we're increasing and improving the inclusion of the clinicians and staff at these centers in pesticide trainings, that we're helping to -- and be able to show that there's an increase in pesticide-related knowledge, but not only that -- and this goes back to our other recommendations with electronic health records -- that we're really thinking about ways to help the clinical systems to improve their practices in order to be able to recognize and manage the pesticides exposures. And all of this, both within this recommendation and with our other recommendation is recognizing that clinicians and healthcare staff are ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 108 not well prepared to recognize and manage pesticide exposures. The National Academy of Sciences and other organizations have done numerous studies documenting the amount of time that your average clinician spends getting trained in environmental health and occupational health and safety, and it's very limited, in some cases as little as as seven hours, and sometimes that's just talking about lead and maybe acute organic phosphate poisoning. Next slide. Invest in needs assessment activities related to pesticides -- related to clinicians and their knowledge, their competencies and training opportunities. So really prior -- again, and this goes back to some of, you know, getting the clinician input, but really thinking about sort of what clinicians know, what resources they have, how do we dump pesticide training and resources into those opportunities is really important. Next slide. Partnering with professional societies and organizations to which clinicians belong in order to help promote the pesticide reporting and also the recognition management of pesticide-related illness and injury. So really again, just like we're trying ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 109 to go to the clinician and think about, you know, what is the clinician's knowledge, what are the resources that they use, you know, going to places where clinicians are going to get their training and information. So looking at some of the organizations to which they belong, whether it's the Association of Nurse Practitioners, the Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Medical Toxicology, National Association of Community Health Centers, all of these are examples of organizations to which clinicians belong, where we can partner with them to help promote the resources and the training needed for the recognition and management of pesticide poisoning. Next slide. And then also really thinking about specifying in any of the cooperative agreements that EPA does to include groups that have frontline relationships and expertise and grounding with the clinicians. So by that, we're looking at, you know, in particularly, you know, clinicians that might work with farmworkers and other occupational exposures to pesticides, really making sure that when we are doing pesticide training that we're targeting the right folks and that we're making sure that they're ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 110 intimately involved in these agreements either as trainees or helping to develop the trainees with those that have the expertise and grounding in frontline relationships with clinicians. Next slide. Okay. So we can go back and open it up for clarification and questions. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Amy. Thanks very much. And I just put it in the chat, we're open to PPDC member questions and the workgroup members. MS. LIEBMAN: I see that Jasmine put a comment in there about the national reporting system should allow clinicians to report pesticide-related illnesses that are both occupation -- it just moved -- that are both occupation -- that are not occupation- related . Yes, we need to have reporting of pesticides, that is true. But when we're looking at PRIA-funded resources, there is a piece in there where we really are focused on workers, but, you know, we also want to know that if a family that's living near a field that's being sprayed is exposed, we want that to be reported as well. MS. BROWN: Yeah, the only reason I commented that is because a lot of reservations lease a lot of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 111 their land out for farming. It might not be their occupation, but they live there or they have homesteads there or are nearby or they're collecting or doing activities in the area. So, you know, they may show up at a hospital with a pesticide exposure, but it might not get triggered into the system because it's not their day job. So that's why I just think it should encompass all pesticide-related illnesses, and I think this is really something that's been needed for a long time. I've responded to even five-year-old kids that have had exposures from glyphosate in softball fields and places -- and parks and things. So just wanted to keep that in mind. The other comment I was going to say is I believe hospitals coding, it just goes in as chemical exposure and so it doesn't actually filter down from there what the chemicals are, or you know, if it's a heavy metal or a pesticide or -- and maybe Kaci knows more about that than I do, but that was my understanding. MS. BUHL: But there are several codes in the ICD-10 that are related to pesticides. They even break it down by chemical class. I was just looking to see if we had that fact sheet up on our website yet ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 112 but we do not. It's still in draft form. There are several codes, but they certainly could be expanded to be more specific and clinicians could stand to be trained on those codes. MS. BROWN: That would be excellent. I also want to say I think it's easily confused with other illnesses. That might be part of the problem as well. MS. LIEBMAN: Yeah, that is that is a long- known concern about acute pesticide poisoning and that is in part why by the training is so important and also the confusion sort of is the result we think of the lack of preparation and training sometimes and that's why, for instance, if someone does come in with flu-like symptoms, understanding the type of work that they do becomes all that much more important. FACILITATOR: Great. Thank you. Thank you, Jasmine. Thank you, Kaci, on that point. I know Joseph is in the queue for a question. DR. GRYZWACZ: Excellent, Thanks. I've got three questions, and the first one may actually be answered in Walter's presentation, so you can just defer me on that one if it's relevant. But question number one is essentially to what extent could a national system actually be built off -- a national surveillance system actually be built off the state ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 113 level system. So that's the first question. The second question is I noticed that noticeably missing from your list of potential partners where the AHEC system, and it seems to me that sort of that central -- or I didn't recall seeing it. It seems to me that centralized bodies, you know, that are responsible for health education for clinicians might be able to be more responsive and more nimble to local conditions, such as this. And then the last one that -- so that's a question is AHEC involved in that? And then the last question is whether or not your group considered or if there's value in considering largely a data informatics kind of recommendation. I mean, ultimately there's going to be no universal electronic medical record and so being able to abstract data from across different medical -- electronic medical records systems is going to be the answer to being able to -- at least being able to monitor things. And so it seems as though some kind of a large data informatics kind of recommendation at a government level would make some sense to me. So those are my few questions. Thanks, Amy. MS. LIEBMAN: So let's see. On your first question, I think that's the discussion that I would ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 114 suggest that we might have after we hear Walter talk about the sensor program, because I do think that the sensor programs have been thought out and there's a lot that we can learn from them as we think about sort of what this could look like on the national level. And there's lots of nuances that it may have to be that every state simply has a sensor program because it has to be state based, but there's lots of nuances. But for sure I think we could touch on that with Walter, but that's something to to think about. The second question, I believe that was your AHEC question. And so the types of organizations, I just think we were giving examples, Joe, but I do think -- like we didn't put Migrant Clinicians Network in there, which would be a great organization to be involved with this because of our 10,000-plus constituents that are actually taking care of farmworkers and other immigrant workers. So AHEC, other organizations that are involved with clinician training, that's open. But our point was to really take into consideration that we don't want to silo this pesticide training. We want to make sure that we're thinking about ways and places and resources where clinicians get their information, where they get their training, where they go to for information, and ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 115 we're considering them and making sure we're making those appropriate linkages. MS. BUHL: And if I could just add something about the electronic health records, I'm also involved with PERC-med, which is another cooperative agreement with EPA, and we've been working hard on the electronic health records angle and trying to work with companies who contract with hospitals and healthcare providers to add sections and reportable conditions for pesticide poisoning. So we're in agreement with you there, but it is a tough nut to crack. So we're working on it. MS. LIEBMAN: And I agree with Kaci. We've worked really hard and long on that, but I think the point that's being made with your informatics suggestion, what Kaci is saying is that the electronic health records are actually really important in terms of the clinical systems, they're intimately tied to the training. So if you go in and you talk to a clinician about the ways to recognize and manage a pesticide poisoning, that clinician is going to need sort of the cues when it comes up on on the electronic health record on some questions to ask. There should be some questions in there that should always be asked. And then there should be ways to help that ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 116 clinician report that using their electronic health record system. That is very, very hard to do, but in order for training to be effective, when you're actually looking at the practicing clinician, making sure that the electronic health record actually compliments that training is critical. It's a little like teaching to the test when you take a standardized test, right? You know, you don't want to be teaching things that aren't going to be on the standardized tests, and so put it on that standardized test with the EHR being that that test. You want to make sure it's there. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Kaci. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Joseph, for that question, getting that spun up. We have time for maybe one or two other PPDC member questions for this sub-workgroup. MS. LIEBMAN: Joe, I see your -- FACILITATOR: Amy, you -- oh, go ahead. MS. LIEBMAN: I see your note in the chat related to the National Library of Medicine. Thank you for that. FACILITATOR: Amy, Mily, thank you for your very succinct and very kind of focused presentations on the two training areas. I think what we're going ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 117 to do now, we've still got 15 or 20 minutes left, but I'm a little bit -- in order to stay on track, I'm a little bit nervous about our voting process, because I don't know exactly how much discussion it's going to generate. And so I think that the process here is that as Ed mentioned before we kicked off, he would be looking for -- the overall intent is that the EPA would like to see from the PPDC an agreement that they're sending on the recommendations for EPA's consideration and to use his term -- and he can jump in and correct me if I'm mischaracterizing -- but to use his term of consensus, these are recommendations that aren't perfect, there aren't recommendations that all hold equal weight, they aren't recommendations that every single person is 100 percent behind them, but we're looking for a consensus. In other words, can we live with the suite of recommendations that have now been passed by these sub-workgroups onto PPDC and the PPDC through a motion to approve and a second to that motion to approve and then opening for a little discussion and then voting yes or not. It's not a -- we're not going to break it down by, you know, 20 different recommendations, and taking one at a time, right? And so let's just ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 118 discuss that for a moment and make sure -- Ed, you and I need to be in sync about what we're trying to accomplish. MS. LIEBMAN: I just have a quick clarify clarifying question that we had some interesting discussion after our our presentations where like Joe added a couple of recommendations. So I think we can look at these, but I think the part of what the workgroups are doing, this is the first time we're presenting them to PPDC. So it's good to get that feedback. And, I mean, I'm fine with going ahead and voting, but I want to make sure that some of the -- maybe if we want to just put in some of that language, or if it's just at least kept in the notes for this meeting that those recommendations were made because Joe, for instance, wasn't on this committee, neither was Jasmine. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, I think — MS. LIEBMAN: And then somebody -- there were some other pieces in here, too, from Liza. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, I think a couple of things. I think the comments we can add as a collection and an addendum to what's submitted to EPA, along with the -- assuming the presentations are approved. And then, you know, my third question is ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 119 going to be -- and I know some workgroups have given thought to this -- does the workgroup continue or does the workgroup feel like they've completed their work. And if we could hear from the workgroup there, and then I will entertain a motion by the PPDC to have the workgroup continue and then I get seconded and then voting on that. But for the first thing, I would -- since we've finished with the clinician training piece, I will ask if there is a member of the PPDC who would like to make a motion that the recommendations for the clinician training workgroup recommendations be passed to EPA, and I'd like to see if there's a motion to do that currently. MS. LIEBMAN: I'll motion. MR. MESSINA: Is there a second? MS. BROWN: I'll second. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll second. Oh, sorry, someone else, too. MR. MESSINA: Great. So we have a second. So then I'11 ask Paul if we could account for voting on whether the clinician training recommendations should be forwarded to the EPA by the full PPDC, if we could take a vote on that. FACILITATOR: Okay, Ed, I think that — and ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 120 then I'm assuming we'll do the same with the farmworker as a separate poll, correct? MR. MESSINA: Correct. FACILITATOR: We had planned on doing it as one poll, but we'll divide it up. Sarah, I think can post the poll question. It's kind of -- we've kind of built it to be fairly generic, so it applies to any of the segments that we're using. So if you can read this in your chat -- or, sorry, you'11 see a new -- an actually new device that's shown up in your -- on the right-hand side of your screen probably. It says PPDC members only. If you support the motion to approve the recommendations, please vote yes. If you do not support the recommendations, please vote no. It's binary and a vote means that you have to click on the yes or no and then hit the submit button in the lower right-hand corner of that window. Does anybody have a question or not see the poll? Anybody on the PPDC, does anybody not see the poll question and the two options for an answer and the submit button? Speak up. DR. GRYZWACZ: So I have a question, I can see the poll, but I thought earlier on there was going to be the opportunity for some discussion before we actually went to the voting. So has that changed a ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 121 bit? MR. MESSINA: No, if we need discussion -- I thought we were done with the discussion. It seemed like it was winding down, but -- FACILITATOR: Right. So this would be discussion specifically on the -- MR. MESSINA: Clinicians. FACILITATOR: -- you know, whether we approve or don't approve, right? And so, Joe, do you have something on just [connection issue]. DR. GRYZWACZ: Just sorry, it could just simply be my lack of familiarity with, you know, kind of the rules of -- Robert's Rules of running a meeting, right? I thought that discussion was not just on the motion, but I thought it was around broader elements and I saw that there was at least a couple of other questions that were asked that were raised in the chat, people saying I've got questions. MR. MESSINA: Oh, okay. DR. GRYZWACZ: And so I just thought it was worthwhile to hear what those questions were before we went on to a vote. That's all. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, well, thanks for pointing that out. I thought we were done with the discussion, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 122 but that was my fault. Sorry, Paul, I -- FACILITATOR: So, okay, I think I see one of those from Lauren Lurkins. MR. MESSINA: Okay, Lauren, you're up. MS. LURKINS: Thank you. I'm not sure when to ask this question now that I have the little mic here. I guess when I was reading and preparing the information in PDF, particularly on the farmworkers -- so I'm sorry, if I'm out of order -- I had understood that these recommendations were a priority and then like other. And so I had -- I'm a little bit shocked that it's all out here in a slightly different format to take in whole and I just don't understand really the process moving forward. So I think there may be some differences between what we were given to prepare and then the bulk of of material today. That's all I wanted to offer. MR. MESSINA: So let me ask this question, because we thought about this as well. Do you feel like there's a need to vote on each of the individual recommendations because some of the recommendations you agree with and some of that you might vote differently on? MS. LURKINS: You know, my personal opinion is, yes, I think -- you know, we were told in the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 123 beginning of at least the farmworker that these -- you know, even the workgroup itself sort of had a really robust dialogue but did not come to unanimous agreement, and so it is a collection of of things. I know that slows us down and messes up our agenda. But I do think there are some very -- you know, there's things that we can coalesce around most likely on this list, but probably not 100 percent of it. MR. MESSINA: Mm-hmm. MS. BROWN: And, also, since this is the first time the full group is seeing this, I wonder -- I mean, I agree, although we may be in mostly consensus of a majority of these, I do feel like there could be some more refining of some of these areas now that we've all seen it and we can discuss it a little bit further before we provide it to EPA. MR. MESSINA: So is that on the farmworker, on the clinician, or on both? MS. BROWN: I would say on both, but if you're looking for an action today then, you know, we'll just make that action today. MR. MESSINA: Well, I mean, it's really up to the PPDC. So, you know, as the chair, I can entertain how folks would like to proceed and we can really run it from there. So I'm hearing from the sub-workgroup ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 124 that there may not have been consensus, which leads me to believe we probably do want to do, you know, at least a voice vote or a voting on each of the recommendations. My first thought is does the subcommittee feel like you would like to do a vote on whether to continue to develop this because you are recommending to the PPDC that you would like to do further development? And I think we can entertain that motion and vote on that, because there's many ways we can handle this. DR. GRYZWACZ: Well, one thing that I would throw out -- and again, I don't -- I'm not good at these sorts of things, but, I mean, quite honestly, the thing that I find most compelling is -- I get the idea is we want to vote on the spirit that's behind the recommendations. The part that was surprising to me, as I was going through them in advance and then hearing Amy and Mily talk through them, is just simply the large amount of recommendations. And sort of I personally would like to have an up or down vote about how are you with the spirit of these recommendations, but then the final recommendations actually going forward I think they need to be prioritized in some way perhaps by the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 125 committee themselves, given that the larger PPDC has sort of given them a thumbs-up on, yes, we agree with the spirit of this, but perhaps to have a snowball's chance in hell of making some impact, maybe we need to prioritize some of them in a meaningful way within the group. MR. MESSINA: Okay. Would you like to make a motion around that Joe and then see if it's seconded? DR. GRYZWACZ: I would make that motion, if anybody else wanted to -- you know, were willing to follow through. MS. LIEBMAN: I actually am -- I am finding this whole sort of voting on this thing, Ed, a little strange from previous PPDC processes. There was a ton of work to get to where we are with these recommendations. I don't think that everyone's going to be 100 percent on board with every single one, but that was -- the job of the workgroup is to come up with some consensus that we all agreed upon. I don't want to go back and spend hours like we did diving through each one of these, prioritizing them. No way. I'm not getting paid enough to do that. You guys get paid the big bucks to do that. I think, you know, EPA is seeing a workgroup of, you know, that reach consensus, whether you want ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 126 them or not, great, you know. And farmworker advocates will continue to advocate for improved farmworker training and clinician training and industry might have issue with certain things that we're saying, you know, that's going to be the nature of the game. So I really don't want to go back to the drawing board and start picking these apart. That's not the role of the workgroup. MR. MESSINA: Okay, that's fair. And really, again, PPDC pretty informal, having a conversation, building consensus trying to operate in a remote environment to kind of do that and how to kind of record, you know, what folks are doing. But the task at hand is really up to PPDC, at this point, the members to decide what, if anything, they would like to do with these two reports and whether they feel like these reports should be forwarded to EPA for consideration. That's kind of the ask for today, however we want to record that or do that. MS. WILSON: I'm sorry, Ed, can I make a comment? This is Nina Wilson. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. MS. WILSON: I'm just listening to the overall and what the forward -- going forward with the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 127 -- I mean, I'm listening to everybody and I think they're good comments. I've heard what Amy says. I would agree with that. But, I mean, if we agree, like someone said, with the spirit of these recommendations and pull them forward, what I think I personally might want to see is EPA's comment point by point on that as to how doable, what the timeline, you know, where they see the importance. I mean, that might be -- I mean, I know there were EPA people involved in that, but, you know, it's sort of more of a specific point-by- point comment to each of the recommendations. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, I mean, my reaction, but, you know, before we sort of get the full report, right, or it gets forwarded to EPA -- and we did have co-chairs on the workgroups -- there's 18 recommendations. It seems like, you know, that is a lot. I think we would need to prioritize them. Some of them I feel like, as Kaci mentioned, there's things we're already doing and so maybe there's some refinement. So I'm certainly pleased with the reports as I've seen them. And I agree with sort of the spirit versus like, yes, once you forward it to EPA, we're going to agree to get working on every single one of these recommendations, right? I can't promise that, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 128 but we're certainly going to look at them and where we can make changes to the work that we have, we're definitely going to take them into consideration. So I don't know if that's helpful feedback for you, Nina. MS. WILSON: Well, I mean, I guess maybe just reading between the lines then, I would assume that EPA then would take them and prioritize them and just say, here's our -- that's all because I'm hearing, yes, there's a lot of recommendations, there's a lot of work involved in them, prioritization doesn't sound like something that the workgroup can or will do, EPA is the one who's actually got to do the recommendations on them and maybe -- I mean, if the workgroup is not going to prioritize, right, it would be EPA's, I guess, call to prioritize them. MR. MESSINA: Yep, fair point. And then Carolyn's note is important as well. As I mentioned the EPA co-chairs were there to sort of facilitate the workgroup discussion for you guys to recommend to us. So, you know, at the same time, I don't want to -- you know, this is PPDC recommending to EPA what we should do. I'm sort of chairing that process, but I don't want to sort of -- and the co-chairs were told to kind of help provide input, provide resources, answer questions, really not to kind of steer the workgroup ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 129 in a direction because then it's sort of EPA steering back to itself on its own recommendations. So it looks like Liza has a comment. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: Thank you, Ed. I just wanted to add on to what Joe said or to support his thoughts as far as voting on the spirit of the recommendations. I think we all support worker safety and certainly the spirit of these. I think it would be valuable to have that vote. And then as EPA has an opportunity to review those recommendations, determine the feasibility how they fit into current activities, and then, also, which outside stakeholder groups would be appropriate to help work on those. It may come back to PPDC in the future, maybe another workgroup to work on a a specific portion. I think that would absolutely, you know, be appropriate and AAPCO would certainly support that going forward. So thank you. MR. MESSINA: Thanks, Liza. Jasmine? MS. BROWN: My only comment is I would like to share these recommendations with the TPPC. I do agree with most of the recommendations and spirit of moving forward with these, but I would hope there would still be further discussion on it. I personally don't know -- I'm not 100 percent comfortable agreeing with all of these without presenting it to the TPPC, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 130 which is the seat I sit on on behalf of at the PPDC. MR. MESSINA: Okay, fair point. Thank you, Jasmine. Iris? MS. FIGUEROA: Yeah, I had a question/comment about process. So I know that in the past there have been other PPDC workgroups. So I guess what would be helpful to know is, you know, once these recommendations are approved, what's sort of the next steps once the ball is in the EPA's court? What does that look like? Because that might, also, I think, maybe resolve some of people's concerns of knowing what that process is going to be like. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. So if the recommendations are forwarded EPA, they're like any recommendations that we get and we would prioritize them and act on them. So examples of where that's happened in the past is the emerging viral pathogen policy that was developed as a result of the recommendation by the full PPDC to EPA. So you would probably start to see us taking this document, examining our work and seeing where we could fit in the recommendations to when we're delivering grants or requiring that grantees provide a work plan, sprinkling some of that in there, you know. So those are examples of where these recommendations could show ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 131 up. The question would be, you know, would we entertain supporting and finding funding for a national system? You know, that's a bigger lift. So that's kind of, you know, different ends of the spectrum and how we might use these recommendations. Does that answer your question? MS. LIEBMAN: Ed, historically, I served on a workgroup for the PPDC a long time ago on the worker protection standard and we spent a lot of time coming up with recommendations for how the worker protection standard should be improved and changed, and EPA also did a number of stakeholder groups, you know. It was multifaceted in terms of the input that EPA took. By no means did you take all the recommendations that that workgroup came out with, unfortunately, but you did what you wanted with them. And so that's why I'm feeling like just keep us sort of in big picture because that's what you do with it anyway, rather than waste -- not wasting our precious time, but like we do have precious time and to sort of to get into the wordsmithing and the nitpicking when, at the end of the day, you guys do what you want to do. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, it's a great point, Amy. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 132 So maybe what I'm hearing, is there a motion by somebody on the PPDC to put forward -- and I want to make sure I capture the words correctly -- the spirit of -- MS. BUHL: Joe actually put an alternative motion in the chat. FACILITATOR: I didn't hear that. What was that? MS. BUHL: Joe put an alternative motion into the chat to accept the spirit of the committee's recommendations under the expectation that OPP will prioritize recommendations for advancing to EPA more broadly, and it looks like Liza seconded. MR. MESSINA: Great perfect. Thanks, Kaci. So it sounds like we have a second to that. So can we put the poll up and the poll will be -- MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Ed, can I (inaudible)? This is Mily. Can you hear me? MR. MESSINA: Yep. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: There's a motion in place, there was a second, and then there was discussion. So what happened to the motion? MR. MESSINA: Yeah, the first motion -- MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: My concern is the first motion needs to -- we need to have a vote unless the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 133 people that did the motion, you know (inaudible) and say, you know, decline, there's no more motion. But you can't do a motion when there's another motion that is in place right now. So I'm kind of concerned that we don't know if the majority feel the same way that the people that are speaking up. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: What's going to happen (inaudible)? MR. MESSINA: So that's a fair point. So there was the prior motion. That motion was solely for the clinician training recommendations. So, Paul, did you have -- did we tally the votes for whether that motion passed? FACILITATOR: That vote never really even opened, Ed. That vote didn't actually happen. So because we went right into the discussion and we never said the vote is open, so the -- you know, if -- I'm not sure about -- I'm just going to throw this out as an independent observer who's worked on FACAs before. So I'm not sure FACA (inaudible) Robert's Rules of Order according to some kind of very structured regulatory enabled process. I think that whoever made that motion last time could withdraw their motion, okay, just verbally right now withdraw it and we have ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 134 another motion on the floor, a motion to approve the spirit -- to accept the spirit of the committee's recommendations and we vote on that. And I would recommend that we combine both clinician and farmworker in one vote. You know, it's -- we have four workgroups, let's have four votes. I mean, again, I don't know if this is -- if I'm presenting something that's controversial, but there was a reason that farmworker and clinician training were combined. So let's combine the vote. It's a combined report. Let's combine the vote and ask the question, because I don't believe you're under strict Robert's Rules of Order for this event. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, we're not. FACILITATOR: To be honest with you. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, we're not. We know that. We checked with the FACA folks. It is just general consensus. FACILITATOR: Okay, okay. MR. MESSINA: It is informal consensus building. FACILITATOR: If the intent is to get a consensus, a general consensus that the intent of these recommendations is acceptable to the PPDC, that's what we want to vote on. We realize, of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 135 course, that EPA has to address all of these recommendations, rack and stack them, allocate resources, do some of them, ignore others. MR. MESSINA: So, Mily, are you comfortable with the fact that the prior vote didn't actually happen and we can move on to the next vote, which would be the Joe Gryzwacz language that's here to have the motion to accept the spirit of the committee's recommendation on the expectation that OPP will prioritize recommendations for advancing at EPA more broadly? And that's been seconded -- MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: Well, I just want us to be congruent with processes. If Paul is saying certain things and -- I mean, I agree with what Amy was talking about. You know, we were not used to following certain processes in terms of what's happening right now. But if the two people that did the motion are going to withdraw, then they need to -- we need to hear it, and that's fine. That's fine. I mean, we want to go ahead and -- I mean, we did spend a lot of time, a lot of time -- MS. LIEBMAN: I think I heard — I think I was one of the owners so I un-motion or whatever we need to do to get the vote for the spirit of it. MS. TREVINO-SAUCEDA: All right, great. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 136 MR. MESSINA: Thanks, Amy. Thanks, Mily. MS. BROWN: I seconded the previous motion to put forward the clinician recommendations, which I put in chat. I'll withdraw or rescind that second on that previous motion. So now we can move forward with Joe's motion. MR. MESSINA: Great, thank you. DR. GRYZWACZ: That's correct. MR. MESSINA: And because the vote never actually -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I would second this motion. FACILITATOR: By the way that Joe's presented, I'm going to -- Joe can correct me. I'm not going to modify his motion, but can we make this motion a friendly amendment, meaning we're combining both the farmworker and clinician recommendations into one cluster as the product of this workgroup? DR. GRYZWACZ: I'm happy to support that. To me, that makes sense. FACILITATOR: Okay. MR. MESSINA: So do we have a second for that? So Joe's language would be to apply to both the clinician and the farmworker training recommendations. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: Yes, you have a ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 137 second. This is Liza. MR. MESSINA: Thank you, Liza. All right, let's open the voting. Paul? FACILITATOR: So Sarah can -- so again, we've genericized it. We didn't know exactly how this conversation was going to take place. If you support this motion, which is in the chat, okay, that we've documented, if you support the motion, then you click on yes and you hit submit. If you don't support that motion, which is again in the spirit of the recommendations, then you click no and you hit submit. So I think the vote is open unless I'm wrong. Sarah, tell me. FACILITATOR 2: No, it is open. FACILITATOR: Okay. And this was PPDC members only not workgroup members that aren't PPDC members. So if we end up with 7 0 votes, we'll know we have a problem. We'll have to do an audit afterwards. (Pause.) MR. MESSINA: Okay, Paul, do you want to move to the next session and then we can report out on the vote at the end of the day. FACILITATOR: Sure, we can do that. I just want to make sure of that -- I don't know if there's like an opening and closing of the vote, so I want to -- ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 138 MR. MESSINA: Yes. FACILITATOR: -- a last call, if possible. Sounds good. Yeah, after we give last call, we'll give what, another minute where the polling is open. Okay. Sarah, have you gotten a surge of votes or is it just one at a time coming in? FACILITATOR 2: No, we did get a surge and it looks like it's slowing down. FACILITATOR: Okay, I'm going to give one more minute for voting. Because I know that Sarah has to transition to advancing slides, Ed, so I can't have her doing the poll and the slides at the same time. MR. MESSINA: Sounds good. Thanks, Paul. FACILITATOR: Okay, thank you. (Pause.) FACILITATOR: All right. I think we've given the PPDC enough time to make a yes or no vote on this motion. So, Sarah, I think you can close that vote. And I'm not sure if it's automatically going to display the results or not, but if there's a little mini dashboard that pops up. So oh, I see. No answer would be all the non-PPDC members. FACILITATOR 2: Correct, yes, anyone who did not vote. FACILITATOR: Okay, so we got 30 responses ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 139 basically from the PPDC. FACILITATOR 2: Correct. FACILITATOR: So I'm a little bit -- okay, so I guess this no answer thing is messing up the proportions. We really only need -- we really only want to hear -- well, it's 29 to 1, that much we can conclude. It's 29 yeas, 1 no, and if there were 9 other PPDC members that are -- 10 other PPDC members that did not vote for some reason, then that's just the way it is, either they stepped away from their desk or they decided not to vote. Okay. Ed, are we good? MR. MESSINA: Yes. Do you know who voted for what? FACILITATOR: That's a good question. Sarah, do we know in the background? FACILITATOR 2: Oh, we will after the fact. I don't have the names of who voted which way right in front of me at the moment. MR. MESSINA: Okay, so we can confirm that -- FACILITATOR: The answer is yes. MR. MESSINA: Great. So we can confirm what -- FACILITATOR: The answer is we can do it, yes. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 140 MR. MESSINA: Yeah, so we can just make sure that the people that voted were PPDC members and only count the PPDC member votes. But it looks like we have a majority. So we'll confirm officially whether the motion passed later in the day once we have them do the audit. But thank you for voting. I think we're ready to move on. FACILITATOR: Okay, thanks, Ed, and thanks, everybody, for your patience on this. It's actually a complex topic and so that's why we took the time to do it. MR. MESSINA: And, Paul, for the next call, can we do an abstain. FACILITATOR: We can certainly add a third option, I think, Sarah. Is that right? We can add any number of choices we want. So we can do yes, no, and abstain. FACILITATOR 2: Mm-hmm. FACILITATOR: Does everybody know what an abstain means? Does an abstain mean I don't have enough information to make that choice, I don't want to vote? Is there a way to interpret what an abstention means? Does it mean I'm conflicted, I have a conflict of interest? What does it mean? Mano, you're the one that suggested it. What ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 141 does the extension mean to you? DR. BASU: It is -- I don't know which way to vote, and to be honest, I wasn't even sure what we are waiting for what we are voting for. We were voting for just combining the recommendation for both the farmworker and clinician training, were we voting for the recommendations that were made. I couldn't find it in the chat because the chat was moving fast. I couldn't even find what the motion was, but that could be just me. So I decided not to vote at all one way or the other because I wasn't sure what the motion is. MR. MESSINA: All right, it looks like you're one of the folks that didn't vote, which is good, which is okay, so that's your abstention. And sorry that the -- it was moving fast, but we said it -- and sorry, Mano, if you missed it. But, yes, it was Joe's language in the chat, which is to move both the farmworker and the clinician recommendations to accept the spirit of the committee's recommendation under the expectation that OPP will prioritize recommendations for advancing to EPA more broadly for both. That was what was what the vote was for. DR. BASU: Okay, thank you. MR. MESSINA: Okay. FACILITATOR: We treated the workgroup as one ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 142 workgroup with one set of recommendations. DR. BASU: Okay. FACILITATOR: That was — DR. BASU: And the full PPDC to accept, adopt the recommendation and spirit for OPP to consider. MR. MESSINA: Yes. FACILITATOR: Correct. That's exactly right. DR. BASU: Okay. MR. MESSINA: So we'll try to be clear -- more clear on the next one and so thank you. And it looks like you were able to abstain by not voting and then having the polling close. I just wanted Sarah to confirm that. DR. BASU: Yes. MR. MESSINA: Sarah, can you confirm that that's kind of the way to abstain? FACILITATOR 2: Yes. And I can add an option for the next vote that specifically has that as an option. MR. MESSINA: Okay, great. All right. Well, let's -- thank you for that good discussion. I agree there's sort of more discussion needed. I think at the wrap up at the end of the day tomorrow, we can talk about, you know, continuation of any of the workgroups and what the recommendations are there. So ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 143 we can continue kind of having this discussion. With that, I'll kick it back to you, Paul. FACILITATOR: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ed. Thanks, everybody. And thanks for the great work that the farmworker and clinician training, workgroup did. We're moving now to one of the three special presentations that we have over this next couple of days. I'd like to introduce Dr. Walter Alarcon, who is from CDC and NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. And he's going to be talking about the SENSOR Program. And before you start, Walter, you know, we had scheduled you from 2:30 to 3:00. We're still going to give you that 30-minute block, which also includes leaving time for PPDC questions and comments. So we'll be starting -- Kaci, we'll be starting with you at 3:15. If Walter takes his entire slot, we'll be starting with you at 3:15 and you will have from 3:15 to 4:30. So Walter, you're up. DR. ALARCON: Good afternoon. Sound check, can you hear me well? FACILITATOR: Yes. DR. ALARCON: Good afternoon. Thank you for ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 144 the opportunity to share with you, a number of you, of the CDC-NIOSH SENSOR-Pesticides Program. SENSOR stands for Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks, and I am the current point (inaudible) for this program. Next slide, please. The goals for this session are to provide an overview of pesticide-related surveillance activities conducted with NIOSH, how the SENSOR-Pesticide Program obtains the data, how quality assurance and quality control are conducted, and then to share with you some results. Next slide. This is technically the definition of public health surveillance as described by Thacker and Berkelman. Public health surveillance is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data that is closely integrated with the timely dissemination of this data to those responsible for preventing and controlling disease and injury. The purpose of public health surveillance is to empower decision-makers so they can make well-informed decisions, or in other words, the purpose of public health surveillance is to provide data for action. Next slide. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 145 It's (inaudible) that one of the main problems in public health is acute pesticide poisoning in humans. This slide shows some reasons why we need to conduct pesticide poisoning surveillance. There are ongoing concerns about pesticide toxicity and pre- market testing of pesticides is not fully comprehensive. Pesticide poisoning surveillance is useful for identifying emerging pesticide hazards and for assessing the root causes of acute pesticide poisonings. When root causes are identified, public health practitioners can apply lessons learned to prevent future cases. Next slide. To conduct public health surveillance, we use the SENSOR methods. As described in the title of this presentation, SENSOR stands for sentinel event notification system for occupational risk. Using these methods, the program conducts identification of sentinel cases, follow up on those cases, and they are reporting the cases to a public health surveillance system. By identifying sentinel cases, public health authorities can assist the root causes and then apply lessons learned to prevent the future cases. One of the injuries and illnesses supported under the SENSOR program is acute occupational ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 146 pesticide-related illnesses and injury. So what is the SENSOR-Pesticides Program and how does the SENSOR-Pesticides Program obtain data? Next slide. The goal of the SENSOR-Pesticides Program is to protect workers from exposure to pesticides. To do so, the program determines the extent and root course or causes of pesticide poisonings in the workplace and uses this knowledge to prevent these exposures. Our program's mission is to build and maintain occupational illness and injuries surveillance capacity within the state health departments. NIOSH provides cooperative agreement funding and technical support to (inaudible) of the (inaudible) states. The EPA uses data for risk assessments and provides technical support and funding for pesticides poisoning surveillance. In summary, the SENSOR-Pesticides program is a partnership among state programs, NIOSH, and the EPA. Next slide shows the names of the states that have participated in the SENSOR-Pesticides Program since its inception. There were three states at the beginning back in 1997. Most of the states have participated consistently in the program. Some of them are funded and several of them receive funding ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 147 from the Federal Government. Recently, NIOSH has awarded cooperative agreement funding to California, Michigan, and Illinois for fiscal years 22 to 26. These three states are highlighted here. The NIOSH Office of External Programs will update its webpage and will post a press release with this information soon. Next slide shows the geographic distribution of the states that participate and have participated in the SENSOR-Pesticides Program. These are colored in blue. The states that have been awarded NIOSH cooperative agreements for fiscal year 22 to 2 6 are colored in dark green. Next slide answers the question where do the data come from. State programs received most of the data from poison control centers, reports or referrals from government agencies, physicians and other health care providers, and from workers' compensation systems. State programs conduct case ascertainment using a standardized set of variables and procedures. These variables and procedures are described in detail in the standardized variable documents. The program is also (inaudible) SPIDER. SPIDER standards for SENSOR Pesticide Incident Data Entry and Reporting. SPIDER is a free tool and is ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 148 being used by some of the states. SPIDER also has built-in validation rules to ensure the data is entered properly. The state programs can also use other data management systems, such as Access or their own systems. Next slide, please. This slide is very busy, but we thought it would be important for us to see how a case was investigated by state program. Can you see my mouse here? No? Okay. MS. JEWELL: I don't think so. Sorry. DR. ALARCON: That's fine. The case investigation process starts when the state program receives the reports of a pesticide poisoning, at the top of the slide. Using an initial screening form, the investigator would respond to the question, is this a pesticide poisoning. If the response is no, then the process stops. If the response is yes, an investigator will do several activities, interview the case or proxy, complete the main questionnaire, and if medical care was sought, request medical records. With this information, the investigator would answer the question, does the exposure meet field follow-up ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 149 criteria. If the response is now, then the investigator will classify the case using standardized procedures and enter information in SPIDER. If the response is yes, meaning that exposure meet field followup criteria, then the investigator would conduct a field investigation and contact appropriate regulatory agencies, if applicable. Then the investigator will classify the case using standardized procedures and enter the information in the SPIDER. Further guidance is provided in the how to guide book. Next slide, please. We will now look at how the SENSOR-Pesticides Program forum conducts quality assurance and quality control. Next slide, please. The standardized variables for state surveillance of pesticide-related illness and injury is at the heart of pursuing procedures to ensure the quality of the data. State programs conduct case ascertainment and initiate quality assurance and control following these standardized procedures. When the data are shared with NIOSH, NIOSH conducts in- depth quality assurance and control procedures, following standardized procedures. If differences are ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 150 found, NIOSH works with the state programs to review the data for accuracy. An aggregated data set is being shared with the EPA project officer in EPA's Health Effects Division. The Health Effects Division project officer analyzes the data and if further clarification are needed, EPA and NIOSH work with state programs to review the date for accuracy again. The Health Effects Division project officer in EPA is well- trained in analyzing the SENSOR-Pesticides Program data and in summarizing the data for EPA's risk assessments. The SENSOR-Pesticides Coding Committee plays a key role in obtaining the standardized variable documents. The Coding Committee is led by the most experienced state programs and includes the project officers in NIOSH and the EPA. The Coding Committee gets together regularly to solve coding issues and to discuss current and future research plans. The SENSOR-Pesticides Program organizes two workshops every year for all participating states. Case scenarios are provided and each participant codes those cases beforehand. We summarize the results, the responses and discuss the responses together. This practice improves coding accuracy among our SENSOR- ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 151 Pesticides colleagues. Next slide, please. We have described that the program conducts case ascertainment and quality assurance and control following standardized procedures. This standardized approach allows the program to maintain consistency across systems and allow for some comparisons. The standardized variables and procedures were developed through collaboration with federal agencies, including NIOSH, EPA, NCEH, this is in CDC, and non-federal agencies, CSTE or the Council State and Territorial Epidemiologists, the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, and the state health departments or their designees. Here, we list some key values. One, pesticide product information including EPA registration number, product name, active ingredients. Two, the industry, occupation, exposure source, and activity performed by the person at the time of exposure. Three, how to code health effects and severity. The program uses a flow diagram and a table of signs and symptoms by severity category (inaudible) to each case. Instructions on how to code contributing factors, also known as prevention codes are also included. We will present some of this in ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 152 the following slides. Next slide, please. The case definition is a key element for conducting surveillance. To achieve a balance between sensibility and specificity, the case definition requires that two new acute health effects resulting from exposure to a pesticide product to be present. This may include systemic signs or symptoms, dermatologic lesions, and/or ocular lesions. The program is required to consist of three parts: Evidence of pesticide exposure, evidence of two new health effects, and evidence of a causal relationship between pesticide exposure and the health effects. We will look at how these criteria are applied in the next slide. Next slide, please. This is a little bit complex, but let me try to explain. Reports received and investigated by state programs are scored on three classification criteria, A, B, and C, and the scores are either one, two, three, or four. And these are assigned based on all available evidence. First, we'll look at A, Documentation of Pesticide Exposure. A score of one is assigned when there is laboratory, clinical, or environmental ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 153 evidence that corroborates exposure. Four is when there isn't sufficient data to corroborate that exposure. Next, we'11 look at B, Documentation of Adverse Health Effects. A score of one is assigned when two or more new post-exposure abnormal signs, test or laboratory findings were reported by a licensed health care professional, or a score of four is assigned when there is insufficient data. A score of four includes having only one new post-exposure abnormal sign, symptoms or test or laboratory finding. Finally, we'll look at C. C is Evidence Supporting a Causal Relationship Between Pesticide Exposure and Health Effects. A score of one is a sign when the findings is documented and the health effects in tier B, we just saw them, are, one, characteristic for a pesticide and/or are consistent with an exposure health effect relationship. (inaudible) used when there is insufficient toxic (inaudible) information. Using these metrics, the case is classified with a status. Status could be a definite or also suspicious and other three categories. Only definites (inaudible) suspicious cases are reportable to the national surveillance system. Next slide, please. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 154 Severity index. Severity is quoted only for cases that meet the case definition. That is to say two new symptoms following exposure to a pesticide product and there is a causal relationship between the symptoms and the pesticide. The program uses a flow chart and a table of signs and symptoms, and we usually refer to the EPA Recommendation and Management of Pesticides Handbook. There is another slide showing the flow chart and an example for the table I provided at the end of presentation. If we have time, we can go over those. For now, we can -- in summary, cases can be of low, moderate, high severity, or death. Most severity cases are not trivial and should not be dismissed as unimportant. No case of pesticide poisoning should be unaccepted regardless of the severity. Low severity cases usually resolve without treatment and when there is lost time from work or normal activities less than three days. In moderate severity cases usually treatment is provided. Time lost from work or normal activities is from three to five days. No residual impairment is present, although effects might be persistent. The high severity cases, the poisoning is life threatening and typically requires treatment, ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 155 substantial loss of time greater than five days from regular work or normal activities is sustained. The person may sustain permanent functional impairments. And death, this category is described as a human fatality resulting from exposure to one or more pesticides. Next slide, please. Contributing factors are also known are prevention codes. These are the factors contributing to the pesticide illness or injury and can point to the root causes of the poisoning. By identifying contributing factors to the pesticide poisonings, we can develop intervention strategies that can trace the root causes of the pesticide poisoning. The system currently has 21 of these codes. Here's an example when a contributing factor can be coded with number 04, or early reentry. In this example, the narratives describes REI, reentry interval was four hours, but workers report that they followed the spray rig along the row. Another example reads, Label states keep unprotected persons out of the area until the sprays are dry, but vegetation is still wet when worker began pulling out the sprayed plants. Next slide, please. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 156 The SENSOR-Pesticides Program has been recognized for providing critical information for occupational and public health. We will describe some of these impacts in the following slides. Next slide, please. Changes in federal regulations to reduce pesticide-related health risks. In September 2015, the U.S. EPA, announced final rules to the Worker Protection Standard, WPS, the federal regulation to reduce pesticide-related health risks among agricultural workers. This was the first major WPS revision 20 years. SENSOR-Pesticides data are extensively cited in the revised rules. Next slide. Changes in proposed federal regulations to improve the training and certification of pesticide applicators. In December 2016, EPA announced final revised regulations for certification and training of pesticide applicators to ensure the competent use of restricted use pesticides. This was the first major revision to these regulations in 40 years. Findings from SENSOR-Pesticides are extensively cited in the announcement. EPA stated that the proposed new requirements will provide benefits to the pesticide applicators, agriculture workers, and the public. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 157 Next slide, please. Safer pest control in schools. The SENSOR- Pesticides Program published an article in the JAMA describing the national incidence of pesticide poisoning at schools. After this article was published, five states have passed laws requiring schools to control pests using methods with the least possible health hazards. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. The program has developed guidance and provided technical assistance on conducting acute pesticide poisonings. The standardized variables document has already been (inaudible). The standardized pesticides program has also developed a how-to guide to assist the state-based organizations. States can use this information to build their own surveillance products. The product results go to SPIDER. SPIDER is a free data entry and reporting system. By using these tools, the state programs collect and manage data in a standardized manner. This also promotes credibility of data across the states. Next slide. Please visit our website to know more about the SENSOR-Pesticides Program. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 158 Thank you. FACILITATOR: Thank you very much, Dr. Alarcon. I appreciate it. And we do have a a couple minutes here for PPDC members. So stay on the stay on the line, sir, and we'll see if PPDC members have questions that they want to either unmute themselves and ask directly or through the chat. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: This is Liza Trossbach, representing AAPCO. And I have a question regarding this particular SENSOR program. DR. ALARCON: Mm-hmm. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: How are state agencies that are responsible -- I mean, or state OSHAs, how are they aware of this opportunity to participate or is that something that's offered regularly to them? DR. ALARCON: The states programs are aware of this program. If you're asking about funding opportunities, NIOSH Office of External Programs (inaudible) regularly (inaudible) evaluate those findings for support. If that was the question. On the other hand, we can say that the SENSOR-Pesticides Program regularly shares information via their website, our Listserv, and also when we attend meetings of the Council of the State and ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 159 Territorial Epidemiologists. I hope this response answered the question. MS. FLEESON TROSSBACH: Yes, thank you so very much. DR. ALARCON: Thank you. FACILITATOR: Iris, was that you or did someone else you have a question? MS. FIGUEROA: Yeah, I had a question. Thank you so much for that presentation. So just -- I think you covered it, but I just want to make sure we're all clear. In terms of where the program is operating right now, you mentioned that there's funding for Michigan and California and Illinois. So could you just let us know what other states are sort of currently in the program? DR. ALARCON: Can you please show us slide number 9? Can you please back up to slide 9? FACILITATOR: Sarah, can you back up to slide 9? I don't see the slide numbers, but maybe -- FACILITATOR 2: Yeah, I don't have those slide numbers, so just -- DR. ALARCON: I am trying to move the slides. Is it working? FACILITATOR 2: No, I have control of the slides at the moment. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 160 DR. ALARCON: So there is a map showing the states that are participating in the program. It's a big map. It's slide number -- this is slide number 9. Yeah, that's the one. Those are the states that are currently working with the program. MS. FIGUEROA: So for those who are blue, they're just receiving different funding than NIOSH funding. That's the distinction, correct? DR. ALARCON: Or not funded. MS. FIGUEROA: So they're participating, but they're not funded? DR. ALARCON: The reason is they don't receive federal funding. Now they run studies and they fund it through their own states. MS. FIGUEROA: Got it. Thank you. DR. ALARCON: Thank you. MS. BROWN: Dr. Walter, this is jasmine brown. I had a question. As you know, there are several tribes in the United States and they have their own clinics or hospitals and they may be in states that aren't receiving funding or aren't currently participating. Is there a way for them to participate in the SPIDER or SENSOR programs? DR. ALARCON: Yes, we usually work through a state health department, but a tribe is not -- is an ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 161 organization not within this state or current system, we can work with them and share the resources we have and they could start their own programs. And then once the data meets the required quality we require from the states, we could use those data and then enter it in the national system. MS. BROWN: Okay, thank you. DR. ALARCON: Thank you. FACILITATOR: We have time for one more. DR. ALARCON: In our — FACILITATOR: Oh, go ahead, Dr. Alarcon. DR. ALARCON: And the way a state -- interested organization can contact us is in our website, there's an email that can -- the way you can reach to us and we can respond to their request. FACILITATOR: Thank you. I think we have time for one more question for Dr. Alarcon. (Pause.) FACILITATOR: Okay. Listen, I think that might be it then. Thank you very, very much for your presentation, Dr. Alarcon. DR. ALARCON: Thank you. FACILITATOR: Thank you very much. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much. FACILITATOR: And we're going to move to the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 162 final item on our agenda before the public segment of the meeting and this -- and now so we're turning it over to Kaci Buhl. Kaci is the Assistant Director at the National Pesticide Information Center and is going to talk to us about risk communications. Kaci, you're up. MS. BUHL: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Paul. And thank you for inviting me to be part of this illustrious meeting. I am honored to get a chance to speak with so many members of the PPDC on such an important topic. Often when I ask groups do you do risk communication, don't know what I'm talking about. But basically this is answering the question, is it safe? This is a really hard question to answer, especially given the wide range of stakeholders that we have and how very specific and limiting that word is, "safe." All right. So first, I want to mention where I get my street cred on this topic. Right out of grad school, I came to work at the National Pesticide Information Center, which is also a cooperative agreement with EPA, in addition to PERC, PERC-MED, and some other things we've mentioned today. It has been housed at Oregon State University for over 25 years now and it is competitively renewed on every three-to- ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 163 five-year basis. We answer questions from around the nation about pesticides, over 10,000 inquiries a year. We also answer email inquiries within one business day. Now before we jump in, I want you to ask yourself real quickly, would you want to take calls like this from the nation? Do you think it would be difficult to take these questions cold from people who may have very strong opinions one way or the other? It is very difficult. And over time, over the last 10 years that I've been involved with the center, 15 really, we have changed and grown the training program based on sound science about risk communication and also psychology. I studied pesticides in school, but I did not study psychology. So I had to learn all that after taking on the role. The Pesticide Information Center has a huge website. This is important for all of you to be aware because it's a resource for you. We've written topics on -- over 700 pages on different topics that we've been asked about at the center. If it becomes a frequently asked question, we talk about it as a group, we hit the literature, make sure we're getting the most up-to-date and sound science, and we write a fact sheet or a web page about it. Those are all ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 164 available to you as talking points, as summaries, and we also include links to all the references we use. So we're actually relying on a lot of state-based resources to answer questions. There's an A to Z index, an easy search box. We encourage you to use that. Over 25 years, the inquiries we receive have come from across the nation, reflecting the dense populations in some states compared to others. We do get more inquiries from Oregon than we should just because people know we exist here more than they do in other places. Many of the people who call our center find our number on pesticide labels or they're Googling to find pesticide information, they're Googling or using Bing or some other search engine to find us. And notice our hours are only four hours a day. I'd love to see that go back up to eight hours a day, or when I started, we did ten hours a day, seven days a week. I'd love to see the service level increase again. Over those 25 years answering a lot of inquiries, we have developed a wide range of educational materials to help people get answers to their questions when the phone service is not open. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 165 Also notice there's a generational difference in how people like to use the phone. I don't know about you, but I hear from younger generations they do not like getting phone calls or making phone calls. So they're going to look for their information in a different way, on websites, on social media. We need to put that information in the path of where people are already going to be instead of expecting them to come get that information from us. All right. Based on all of that learning and growing and writing over 25 years, we've built a strong understanding of what risk perception is and it is personal. There is a whole issue of environmental health perspectives published on this topic about how many different factors go into the idea of individual risk assessment. Most of our risk perception is based on fast, intuitive feelings. This is based on books written by Malcolm Gladwell and others about those intuitions that jump into our brains immediately when we hear about a risky thing. Those quick, intuitive feelings serve us very well to protect us from bad stuff. That's the quick intuitive feeling that tells you to run if you interact with the bear or a tiger, but those quick intuitive feelings may not be as well informed. We ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 166 need to understand this risk perception before we can understand how to communicate about these risks. First, I need to make the case to you that risk does not exist out there independent of our minds and cultures, waiting to be measured. It is not a hard and fast thing. I've heard plenty of toxicologists say the risk is negligible, the risk is low, but they're talking about the probability of harm. Risk is a different thing. Risk involves a whole population for us professionals. We invented this concept to help us understand the uncertainties in life. We now understand, better than we did 20 years ago, that many communities perceive risks differently. And trauma can inform our risk perception, those internal calculations. If an individual has been misled in the past, they're much more likely to distrust information coming in the future. When professionals say risk, I mentioned this in the last slide, we're often thinking about probability. We measure it at a population level, the percent of population impacted by a thing, and this is what we mean when we say the risk is high, moderate, or low, we're talking about the probability of harm in ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 167 the population. But we're not even using -- like this word is defined differently by members of the general public. Instead, they're not thinking about a graph or a gradation. They think of risk as being a binomial. It's either risky or it's not; it's either dangerous or it's not. They're not thinking about a population; they're thinking about themselves and their family. It's understood at an individual level, not a population level. With that idea of the binomial, I hope I can make the case to you to stop saying that things are safe. Let's all just stop saying it. And if we can convince the media to stop saying it, that would be a big help, too, because safety is yes or no. If something is safe, then no precautions are necessary, and safe is safe for everyone. It's easy to explain. But risk is more complicated. It ranges from low risk to high risk. We know precautions reduce risks, but it is harder to explain. I'll make the case for this. I've heard callers on the phone say, to me, the pest control operator said that it was safe, but he was wearing gloves so it's obviously not safe. What? I bet you didn't know that your credibility could be hurt by such a thing, but it absolutely can because people ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 168 think of safety as a binomial. I'll give you one more example of the impression of safety leading to careless behaviors. I spoke to a caller once who called and was very upset that their dog was sick after eating a slug bait product. The slug bait label said safe to use around kids and pets. Well, she came home from grocery shopping the day before with her arms full and her kids pulling on her clothes and she noticed that the bag of slug bait had fallen off a high shelf in the garage and the dog was eating it. All of it. I mean, slug baits can be formulated with delicious things like molasses. So she thought, whew, it's a good thing I picked the slug bait that's safe for dogs. That led to careless behaviors and a lack of vigilance, which led to increased risk. Telling people that something is safe really can increase the risk of that thing. So let's instead talk about risk and ways to affect it. Just a little meme to make you laugh at the end of the day. Hope it made you laugh. Instead, let's rephrase the safe question. When they ask, is it safe, talk about the risk. Tell me about your specific concerns, ask the question. Someone is not asking is it safe unless they are ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 169 concerned, right? So first, listen to their specific concerns. I've been shocked hearing very valid and unique exposure scenarios from people that were not necessarily considered in risk assessments. So we need to ask a question. For example, they might say they've got an elderly family member in the house with a compromised immune system. That's a different case than just saying follow the label and you wouldn't expect to have any adverse effects. There might be additional mitigation steps that could be taken once we hear about those additional concerns. All right. Now, when communicating about risk, I have to start at the basics. I learned in school that risk is made of two things, toxicity and exposure. The toxicity is relative to the toxicological space that I work in, but you could also use it as hazard, ladder safety, mine safety, other issues, it's the hazard. And the other factor is how much exposure do you have to that hazard. So when someone asks on the call center phone line is it safe, we always cover issues about the toxicity of the thing they're asking about it. We might talk about the toxicology of the active ingredient, the product signal word, the dose ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 170 estimate, something from that list that's appropriate, and then we would also talk about exposure. How will you be exposed, by what route? Maybe it's relevant to talk about the physical chemical properties of the active ingredient. For example, some of them can pass through the skin, some of them cannot very readily pass through the skin. We would want to talk to them about duration, frequency of exposure, how to keep that as short as possible. Minimizing exposure minimizes risk, and that's a pretty clear statement across the board. For toxicity, we might mention the relevant route of exposure. This is an example tox box that you'll find in any of NPIC's technical fact sheets. I encourage you to check these out if you haven't seen them. This is basically communicating that glyphosate, just an example AI that I picked, active ingredient, is low or very low in toxicity when eaten, inhaled, on the skin, or for primary eye and skin irritation, but that is only taking into account acute exposures that are high-dose, short-term exposures, but useful to be aware of. But even with something that is low toxicity, here's something I learned on the phone lines, there is no acceptable risk in the absence of benefit. This ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 171 is a brain thing. Let me tell you something about -- this is a piece of research done by Paul Slovic at the University of Oregon. He asked people to rank these risks on a scale of one to five. Up at the top, we have two different ways of being exposed to radiation. With nuclear power, it was described to the participants as living in a community where nuclear power is used and the ambient radiation would be comparable to the amount received from sunlight. They ranked the benefit low and the risk high. With exposure to x-rays, the dose is much higher. They ranked the benefit high and the risk low. From a risk assessor's standpoint, those of you who have a toxicology background on this webinar today know very well that the risk -- the probability of harm is much higher with x-rays because the dose is higher. The nurse leaves the room. But see how it's connected to benefit in like a teeter-totter fashion. If the benefit is low, then the risk is high. If the benefit is high, then the risk is low. The same thing was borne out with exposure to chemicals. The participants in the study had this part described to them as low levels of pesticides as a result of legal use on commodities, so the same kind of low level residues that we experience in the diet ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 172 today. They ranked the benefit low and the risk high. But another way of being exposed to chemicals is through prescription drugs. The dose is much higher in some cases. The duration and frequency of exposure is much higher in those cases, but they ranked the benefit high and the risk lower. And you can see how that benefit is uniquely tied to it. So what to get from this information, risks are less likely to be acceptable if the benefits are hidden from view or if those benefits are not fairly distributed among those who bear the risks. So for example, if a commercial entity gets all the benefits and the surrounding community is sharing the risk, sometimes that's reason enough to find the risk unacceptable. So we need to not be silent about the benefits of pesticides. I picked three pictures just to represent that. This is a Christmas tree plantation here in Oregon that's been taken over by an invasive species called Scotch broom, making it very difficult to grow those trees. Pesticides are also used in a variety of natural settings to control invasive weeds and insects that can be incredibly important to protecting the habitat for wildlife. I went to college with a lot of individuals who cared a ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 173 lot about environmental science, including myself obviously, and a bunch of my friends now work in settings where they're applying pesticides, they're applying herbicides to protect those natural areas. Not something they anticipated, but they are critical tools in the protection of wild areas. All right. I've talked about benefit, now I'm going to talk about control. These are two concepts that we have found are very inextricably linked to risk perception. Risk denial increases with perceived control. If we think we're in control of it, then it's not so risky because we trust ourselves more than we trust other entities, and trust is a key component to risk perception. I put those thumbs there because that's who I trust the most, myself, and that's probably true of most individuals on the trust scale. How do we handle that at the center? Well, we give people something they can control, ways to minimize exposure. This list is not intended to be read in detail. I know the type is very small. At a staff meeting for NPIC, I asked the staff, what are some ways to minimize exposure that you talk to callers about when they're having a liquid applied in a residential setting. Well, there's lots of things ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 174 that people can do to take control of the situation. Use appropriate PPE if that's what you're doing, don't track in residues on your shoes, a lot of different things that you can do to take control of the situation to minimize exposure. Giving people something they have control over is an important part of making sure they can take steps to protect themselves. All right. So putting that together, about five years into my time at NPIC, at the Pesticide Information Center, I came to understand and built this into the training that the informed risk decision-making includes toxicity and exposure. Those are the pillars. But it's not a solid picture until the individual understands the benefit and items in their own control, who controls the situation. I'm going to go further, there's more about this psychology business. All right. I'm going to show you several studies in the next few slides that I think are really helpful to understanding risk perception. Trust is critical: hard won, easily lost. Risk and risk assessment are subjective and value-laden. I'll make the case for that. If you think you're doing your best job to be objective, I ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 175 applaud you and that is a great pursuit, but we have to acknowledge that there are subjective judgments in those processes. Sometimes if you define risk one way, the best solution might be this; if you define right another way, it might be that. Let me show you an example. If you were to ask the question is coal mining getting safer, well, you could measure it one way, accidental deaths per million tons of coal. It sure looks like mining is getting safer when you look at that first graph. Way fewer accidental deaths. Well, you could look at it a different way and look at it per thousand coal miner -- coal mine employees. Sounds like they've been doing more mechanization, there's fewer employees. This graph actually makes it look like mining is getting more dangerous. Who decides how we measure this? And let me point out, both of those we're counting fatalities, and there are certainly other ways to define adverse impacts. Sublethal impacts, impacts on fertility, impacts on neuro development, impacts on literacy, and that all leads to societal impacts that are not necessarily considered in these risk assessments. This is what I learned from my public health ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 176 interns because I didn't take public health classes. There's a thing called the deficit model, and I think we have all been stuck in it, at least in the pesticide world, for a while. That's the idea that the general public or the people we serve are at a deficit. They just don't know as much as we do. The idea that the expert has knowledge and the nonexperts don't have knowledge, well, what does this lead to? Well, it leads us to doing, like here, have another fact sheet, another video. They just don't get it. I can't help it if people don't understand science. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this from regulators, from educators, from registrants. It's a very difficult one, but let me make the case. Here's what we're doing wrong. Instead of communicating to people, we need to communicate with people. It has to be two-way. They can't accept our messages if they don't feel heard in the first place. And this is true for us, too. No one's different. We want to be heard before we accept alternative recommendations. This is just a new mechanism. I've been studying about environmental health literacy. First, I learned in recent years that health literacy, knowing words like "cancer" and "cholesterol" does not ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 177 translate directly into environmental health literacy. So we have people in the community that know medical terms really well, but they don't know environmental health terms well, like exposure and a number of other terms in environmental help. So someone might be very savvy about some environmental health topics and be completely at a loss at another one of these. It's also helpful to know that people think of these as all different dangers and not all coming under the realm of environmental health. It's kind of a new thing in the Zeitgeist that people are still trying to define. Another study I want to show you is about gut feelings. Our feelings about outcomes and feelings about probabilities are often confused. We call this probability neglect. It basically means if the outcome is super scary or super happy, then we will be super scared or super happy instead of paying attention to the probability. Here is the study. Essentially, Paul -- oh, I explained that already. Paul Slovic asked a group of toxicologists to rank the risks from a low exposure to a low cancer risk thing and they made the risk low. High exposure to a carcinogen, they raised it up. Exposure makes a big difference for toxicologists when ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 178 they're assessing risk. Look at how flat this line is for the public. It says, if they're saying to us, if a large exposure is bad, then a small exposure is also bad, if we're talking about cancer, it is a dreaded effect, it does not matter. Probability does not matter in cases like this. I found this out the hard way on the phone when you talk about toxicological data with someone, it may not be compelling at all if they have strong emotions about the negative outcome. It works the same way in the opposite direction like winning the lottery. Winning the lottery sounds so awesome. Some of us buy tickets even though we understand the probability is vanishingly small. All right. Another study I'd like to share with you, I'm a nerd for this stuff. This is also from Paul Slovic at Oregon State University. In this study, people with different world views were asked about their attitudes toward nanotechnology before and after being given information. They were given a paragraph. Everybody in the study was given a paragraph about nanotechnology that talked about its potential benefits and its potential risks. These different world views ranged from things like this. So first, the researchers asked the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 179 participants how much they agreed or disagreed with these statements, and by doing that, they could lump them into groups of individualists or communitarians, egalitarians, hierarchists. There are lots of different ways to break people down into clubs. This is just one that talks about the world view and I think importantly how people feel about the role of government. Interesting. Now, remember, they were asked about the risks and benefits of nanotech before and after reading the paragraph. Before they read the paragraph, they're all bunched up here in the middle ranking the benefits and risks between 2.6 and 2.7 out of 5. That's really bunched up together. But after reading the paragraph about nanotech -- and they all read the same thing -- the individuals and hierarchs decided the benefits were greater than the risks. Full speed ahead. But the egalitarians and communitarians decided after reading the same material, the risks were greater than the benefits. Reasonable people on both sides of this read the same information and their values came in. We need to remember this when people disagree with our risk assessments, that it could be a world view difference. It may not be that they just don't ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 180 understand science. It could be that they see the world in a different way and they see those risks as being more problematic than others do. There's more. We have already talked about benefit and control. If one increases the perceived benefit or the perceived control, it has an effect of decreasing the perceived risk, but these are not the only what Paul Slovic calls outrage factors. Each one of these lines represents an outrage factor. If things are on the left, we perceived lower risk. This is based on his body of research. If things are on the right side of the screen, we perceived those risks to be higher. You can see how benefit and control are are included, but there are also outreach factors related to whether something is voluntary, whether something is natural, whether something affects children, and whether something is familiar. That bottom one is a very strong driver. We perceive things to be a higher risk in general if we don't trust the entity who's describing the risk to us. You can become a more trusted entity by giving people the room to make up their own minds about these risks. All right. As we discussed the framework, this is what to say in response to the question, is it ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 181 safe. First, we reframe it as a question about risk. Make sure you discuss the toxicity of the thing, exposure to the thing. If applicable, the benefit of the thing -- sometimes if it was a spill, there is no benefit so you don't mention that, but control, items in the person's control, that's what to say. Now, in the next section, I'm going to talk about how to say it. All right. This is a proposed checklist. It's not a hard and fast way to approach these conversations, but it has been helpful to a number of our trainees. A number of trainees at the center actually print this out, put it under the blotter, the clear blotter on their desk so they can check off and remember that they've covered each one of these things. This last piece, where to get more information, that's really important to making you a trusted entity that you're not just saying to the individual, trust me and go away. You're instead giving them information, but you're also giving them a source where they can get more information. You're welcome to give out the center's contact information if you're not sure who else to include at the bottom of this risk conversation. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 182 Now, how to say it, I encourage each one of you, if you do this kind of work to go read the Debunking Handbook. It's only about 20 pages long. It was prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists in response to climate change science, helping us understand why people reject certain messages. First, we are guilty of the backfire effect, of overkill. If we try to address a myth with too many facts, the person walks away remembering the myth. If we can do the work to get our facts down to size, there is a chance to the person may walk away with the fact. When I explained this to trainees, I know this is kind of a weird way of explaining it, but in order to pluck a myth out of someone's mental map, you have to replace it with something about the same size. This is hard work, getting all the information down to fewer words while maintaining accuracy. It will take your experts to do this work, making that strong case. There's another backfire effect. Yes, did I skip it? No, I just showed it twice. Sorry about that. The other backfire effect has to do with mentioning the myth too many times when you're trying to debunk it. Every time you mention a myth or describe it or talk about -- just name it in its ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 183 entirety, you're making that myth more familiar to your audience. If they're halfway checked out, they're just getting that myth confirmed in their head every time you mention it. So if you're trying to debunk a myth try to not mention it specifically or if you have to say the myth isn't true, say the myth, and then say again what I just said isn't true. So you're book-ending it by making sure people hear that that myth is not the case. One more on this, a piece of neuroscience that I am fascinated by, finding the sweet spot in our risk messaging. For example, I like to use the idea of public health messaging around smoking. If you were to make a public health message around smoking that was focused on threatened danger, then you would talk about how it destroys your lungs, you're going to smell bad, threat danger, you're going to die. But if you focused instead on reward and benefit, you might talk about the benefits, you're going to feel better, you'll have more stamina, you're going to smell better, et cetera. It turns out to maximize learning, we need to put our messages on the reward and benefits side. It turns out if our brains are focused too much on threat, learning shuts down because the brain is busy ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 184 focusing on that threat and that's more important than learning new information that may not be exactly relevant to that threat. Pretty interesting, I think. Let's focus on what to do. So we've actually taken this into the NPIC website very strongly. Instead of saying what not to do, we try to focus on what to do, we try to focus on the benefits of doing it the right way. So in summary, some suggestions in yellow, we talked about chemical risk assessment measures, the probability of harm and how personal risk assessment is actually variable based on world views, strength of emotion, and perceived benefit. We have to address the motions first. Then people may be able to consider probability. When you address emotions first that means you ask about their specific concerns and listen. Being heard is one of the most important parts to addressing emotion. We talked about how the benefits often inform our risk perception more than the probability of harm and how defining risk is in act of power and how safe is not a safe word. So my suggestions at the bottom don't be silent about the benefits when you talk about risk. Don't define risk for people. Let them make up their ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 185 own minds. Sometimes on the phones people would ask me, well, what do you think, you sound smart about this, just tell me what I should think. And I often would -- I would tell them, it's not important what I think, I'm not in the situation, I'm not going to be exposed, what matters is what you think. If you still need more information to make up your mind, I'm happy to look that up for you, anything I can do. And, last, discuss risk, ways to reduce it, empower people. In case you didn't get a chance to take a picture of the fine proposed checklist so that I can give you one more chance, frame it as risk rather than safety, ask questions and listen. Make sure we cover the hazard of the toxicity. What could happen? Does it cause cancer? Is it highly toxic to the eye? Provide exposure information. How might you be exposed and how can you prevent that? Discuss the benefits of the thing, if applicable. Discuss action items in the person's control and where to get more information. I put my email address down here at the bottom. It's a little bit hard to read. It is Kaci.Buhl@oregonstate.edu. I sure appreciate the opportunity to share some of the things that we've learned over time at ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 186 NPIC when we've been trying to discuss risk with thousands and thousands of people over time. I think this model is moving well into the modern era where people want to make up their own minds, they don't want to be told by the government, by industry, by anyone, what the risk actually is. We need to just get more transparent and we need to get better at describing these risks with fewer words. We have to do the work. Okay. I sounded awfully preachy. I did not stop to entertain questions. If there are questions, I'm happy to respond to those. I'm not sure if I've gone over time. FACILITATOR: You are well with in your time frame, Kaci. Thank you very much. MS. BUHL: You're very welcome. FACILITATOR: Great — MS. BUHL: I see in the chat that Charlotte has a question. FACILITATOR: There you go. MS. SANSON: Yeah, thanks, Kaci. That was really -- it wasn't just informative, but it was very, very helpful, so I really appreciate your perspective on this. And so I can imagine some of the calls, the types of calls that you receive. So I was just kind ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 187 of curious, when you were talking about myths, what would you say is the most common myth that you or -- maybe it's not just, one maybe there's a few -- most common myths that you hear coming through the lines? I'm kind of just curious in terms of your thoughts about how, you know, proactively as the agriculture community, what we can do. Obviously, education is a big piece of this, too. So, anyway, I'll let you talk. Thank you. Thank you again. MS. BUHL: Absolutely. One important myth I want to talk about that's timely for right now, homemade mixtures of weed killers and insect killers, the recipes are all over Pinterest, and it's a problem. Especially with vinegar and weed killers, the poison control center is seeing a higher rate of eye exposures with vinegar. I've been doing a lot of education around this, just encouraging people to use registered products or 25(b) products that have been evaluated in some way. People can salt the earth, they can hurt themselves very, very much by mixing up toxic combinations of stuff at home, especially if they're mixing things like ammonia, ammonium and bleach. So homemade mixtures, people call them nonpesticides, nonchemicals. That is definitely a ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 188 myth. And another one I have to mention not so agricultural, but the biggest incident we hear about all the time is moth ball misuse. Moth balls are supposed to be used in airtight containers, not closets, not car cabins. People getting headaches, people not understanding the label directions on moth balls is another big one. The rest of the myths I'm sure would sound familiar to you as well, a myth that agricultural pesticides are more toxic by nature than consumer products. That's not necessarily the case. That products used by professionals are inherently more toxic than products available to the public, also, not a generalization we can make. I could go on, but I have been talking too long. Is there another question? I guess there's not. Okay. FACILITATOR: Let's do a little pause. You covered a lot of material. Let's make sure PPDC members and even workgroup members who aren't PPDC members can unmute themselves and ask a question or toss a question into the chat. Here we go, let's see. Can you see the chat, Kaci? ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 189 MS. BUHL: I can. So this one comes from Manojit. I'm not sure I pronounced it correctly, I'm sorry. FACILITATOR: Yes, Mano Basu. MS. BUHL: Mano Basu. Thank you. Great presentation. One major variable in risk communication is misinformation and myth. What are your thoughts on managing misinformation versus individual perception? Well, managing misinformation is a mass media problem, right? So one of the ways that we can address that is by putting accurate information that competes with the misinformation, the accurate information has to be just as snappy and cool to share as the misinformation. So NPIC is doing a hero's job on social media, I think, by putting that information, the accurate information out in the path where consumers can see it at a time of year that it's applicable. So in the fall, we hear a lot about head lice and rodents, so we're putting out accurate how to do it right information out in the fall about head lice and rodents. So you have to put it in their path. Managing misinformation is a huge (inaudible) -- FACILITATOR: Damon has a question. MS. BUHL: Okay. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 190 MR. REABE: Yeah, thanks. Excellent. That was an excellent presentation. I really appreciated it. I'm an aerial applicator from Wisconsin, and so as an aerial applicator, we're very visible and we receive a lot of calls from concerned neighbors about our activities and this presentation is really helpful, a real helpful tool for communicating with people who are worried about what we're doing. Given this group there, this committee is advising OPP on policy, what do you see that the OPP can do to help on this subject of risk communication? MS. BUHL: That's a great question. I'm trying to prioritize my answer. Pesticide labels are a big part of it that EPA actually has some authority over. I understand that there's a workgroup right now focusing on pesticide label content that may or may not be misleading. I think the font of pesticide labels is misleading. It gives people the impression that it's small print and it's not important to read. Making that print larger would put more information in the hands of the consumers so they could make up their own minds. The precautionary statements need to be large enough print to give the user the impression that it's important. And we need to do the work to bring those statements down to an 8th grade reading ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 191 level. What else? Oh, here's one. I've been trying this for a long time. You know how on the side of your box of crackers or spaghetti it has that standard thing with all the nutrition information, so if you're tracking your fiber or your sodium intake, you can see you can easily find that information on the label. I think pesticide labels should have a similar kind of panel that makes it easy for consumers to find all the most important information very quickly, the EPA registration number, the precautionary statements, the first aid statements. Something like that with the standard format, I think would improve consumers' access to that information that's so critical to using products correctly. MR. REABE: Do you think that there would be any space for OPP to communicate benefits? MS. BUHL: Well, when communicating risks, it is part of the equation in our brain. So it does bear some discussion. We're not -- we don't have anything to balance that risk against if we don't understand the benefit and who benefits and how much. And we might even look at how those benefits could be used to address some of the risks. MR. REABE: Thank you very much. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 192 MS. BUHL: Yeah. So I see another question, is the reference to NPIC contact information a label requirement? You said that was the way most people find you. Well, it is a label requirement that an 800 number or a toll-free number needs to be on the pesticide label for questions. Larger registrants tend to have their own phone center and they use their own 800 number. Smaller registrants often choose to use NPIC as the 8 00 number. They're welcome to do that. They need to make sure they're saying for nonemergency information, call NPIC. Sometimes those labels say for emergency medical treatment information, that's a terrible thing because we're only open four hours a day and that's only on weekdays. So look to the label review manual. There is this section in there that talks about how to include NPIC's phone number on the label and what language to include with it. You are welcome, Lauren. I'm so honored that you guys stuck with it and hung out for the whole presentation even here at the end of the day. If there are follow-up questions or how do you handle this or that, I am more than happy to take follow-up emails. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Kaci. Again, if ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 193 there are any other questions out there, please signify so. Either speak up or throw it in the chat. MS. JEWELL: Kaci, this is Shannon. FACILITATOR: Okay. Well, thank you very much. MS. BUHL: Oh, wait. FACILITATOR: Oh, go ahead, go ahead. MS. JEWELL: Oh, I was just going to say you said the label review manual, right? I'll try to chat out a link to that for everyone, too. MS. BUHL: Yes, please. Thanks. MR. MESSINA: Thanks for the presentation, Kaci. And I'll note, you know, in keeping with do we follow PPDC recommendations, your presentation is happening, because the PPDC asked that there be more presentations related to risk communication. And having seen you deliver this in the past and knowing it is one of the best presentations I've seen on this topic, really engaging, provocative, and it gets you thinking about how we can do a better job for EPA at communicating risks. It was great to have you present. So I see that echoed in the chat. So thanks for presenting again. FACILITATOR: Great. Thank you very much. And we are about a half-hour ahead of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 194 schedule so that surprises me a little bit, but that's okay. What I probably should ask is we're -- the next segment of the agenda is the public comment period and we have five people preregistered, not necessarily five people on the line at the moment, but we have five people preregistered for making public comments today during the public comment period. And so we have a couple of choices. We can -- I have to think about what the rules are about that. If you published a public comment period, I believe it's legitimate if that period of the agenda shows up a little bit early, that people should be ready. But maybe if there's more of a process-oriented person on the line that can say -- maybe, Shannon, do you know if we advertised it at 4:30, does it have to be at 4:30 or could it be at 4:00? MS. JEWELL: I would say if not everyone is here to ask those questions that they should be provided that opportunity at 4:30, absolutely. But maybe a couple of them are, if you want to start that way, Ed. MR. MESSINA: Well, let me yeah, I was going along the same lines. Are all the presenters that have signed up here currently? Because then I think ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 195 we would have no problem just starting the public comment period. FACILITATOR: Right. I got the impression through a quick set of chats with Sarah that maybe not. So, Sarah, maybe you could look at the people that are live as participants and compare that to our list of five, who's here and who is not or how many are here. FACILITATOR 2: Yeah, everyone -- not everyone is on the line right now, although a few folks that have signed up, I haven't seen throughout the meeting. So we also -- they also -- a few people signed up to speak tomorrow, so they may be speaking tomorrow instead of today. But the short answer is, no, not all of the public commenters are on the line right now. MR. MESSINA: Okay. FACILITATOR: How many are on the line? MR. MESSINA: Yeah. That was my next question. FACILITATOR 2: I believe only two of five are on the line currently. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, and the other thing is it's a public meeting for the entire day and we're here. So I don't see an issue with putting -- having ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 196 folks -- and we have this as part of the record, as well. So it will be part of the published record for PPDC. So I don't see an issue with going forward a little bit earlier assuming that we have folks that are ready to present. FACILITATOR: Okay. MR. MESSINA: And if there's a way to get in touch with the folks that had suggested -- would like to participate, if you can send them a note to let them know where we're getting started earlier and see if that works for them. And if it doesn't, we're happy to have them -- I think by the time we're finished, we'll be right at 4:30 anyway and they won't have been prejudiced by starting early because we will make sure we get to their comments. How does that sound? FACILITATOR: That's a very good point. Yeah, that seems to work for me. So why don't we at least get started now on whoever -- with whoever is here and whoever joins us in the next few minutes while the first one or two speakers are on the line. And, Sarah, we'll just play this one moment at a time, okay? So I can make some opening -- let me see here. I could make some opening comments about what ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 197 this public comment period is just for everybody's sake. We are now in the public comment period, will be until we've kind of exhausted the number of people that have preregistered and are here. But there's about a 30-minute limit on this segment. It's an opportunity to hear from members of the public on any issue associated with the PPDC's work, the work of the subgroups, any kind of pesticide-related programs that they would like to comment on. I think EPA is all ears . We've got five people preregistered, okay. And I'11 call each of them in the order that Sarah tells me to. I think she's got probably a slide with the five name on it in a certain order, but we'11 be basically taking kind of first come, first served here. Each person, you know, generally speaking, we like to limit comments, you know, three to four minutes, on the outside five, but three to four minutes. You can always provide written comments to the record by contacting EPA, you can also send comments directly to Shannon. I believe that is jewell.shannon@epa.gov. Did I get that right, Shannon? MS. JEWELL: That's right, that's right. And ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 198 I'll put that in the chat as well. Thank you, Paul. FACILITATOR: Okay, very good. And let's see here, if for some reason, you've preregistered and decide not -- you've decided not to speak today, you can just speak up when you get your name called and let me know that by saying I have no comment. And if you have not preregistered and are on this call and would like to make a public comment, I think if we have time, we'll permit that. And with that, I think we can go ahead and get started. I know who's on my list first, I'm going to I'm going to name the name and see if this person's here. That first person is Abdajali Makowi (phonetic). Sorry, it's Abdajaleel Makowi (phonetic). FACILITATOR 2: It does not look like they're on the line. FACILITATOR: Okay. How about Anamika Gulotti (phonetic). FACILITATOR 2: Same for them. It doesn't appear that they're online. FACILITATOR: Okay. All right. How about Ashwath Fason (phonetic). FACILITATOR 2: They are not online either. FACILITATOR: Okay. How about William Jordan? ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 199 FACILITATOR 2: It looks like they are online. So, William, I will go ahead and unmute your line. FACILITATOR: Great. And, William, if you'd introduce yourself and the organization that you are affiliated with, if there is one. MR. JORDAN: Thanks. I'm William Jordan. I'm affiliated with the Environmental Protection Network. And I have four or five points I'd like to address. First of all, I am really encouraged by the priorities that Ed Messina talked about for the agency. Climate change and environmental justice, in my opinion, should be at the top of the list. I'm also encouraged that the Office of Pesticide Programs is playing a role in working on it. Certainly the changing distribution of pests in the country will be a big factor, the big question that comes out of climate change. But I'm disappointed that Ed didn't mention what I see as being the most direct and obvious and significant consequences of climate change for pesticide regulation and that is that as the climate warms more and more agricultural workers/farmworkers will be experiencing heat stress, and to the extent ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 200 that EPA relies on personal protective equipment to reduce exposure to pesticides, that compounds heat stress. So I think that EPA needs to take a long, hard, serious look at its strategies with regard to PPE and how they're going to deal with that going forward under increasingly rising temperatures. And, further, heat stress and toxicity of pesticides have been shown in some limited research to interact and so heat stress may be a factor that's not fully considered in the risk assessments. Second point I want to cover is the SENSOR program. I am delighted to see that the SENSOR program goes on. I think that the recommendations coming out of the farmworker clinician program to have a comprehensive national reporting incident system is essential for EPA because EPA actually operates in the pesticide world on an assumption that people follow the label. But as we just heard from Kaci Buhl, people do not. And there is ample evidence outside of the examples that she gave that there is really a lot of noncompliance with pesticide labeling. To the extent that that's the case, it will show up as incidents where people are getting poisoned and having to seek medical attention. That's why EPA ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 201 really needs to expand the scope of SENSOR beyond the three states that are participating right now. The SENSOR information that was gathered into the older system with a far larger number of states participating was actually very important in helping to fashion regulatory controls as we heard and EPA is short-changing itself in ignoring an important source of information by not funding SENSOR not only at the full -- at the previous level, but more fully so it would cover more states than before. The third thing that I want to talk about is the recommendation that Kaci Buhl made with regard to standardizing pesticide label formats. This is an area where I have ample experience and feedback from the user community that labels are hard to follow and so basically people don't look at them very closely, and standardizing the format would give people an easier access to the information they need. So that's something that really needs to be examined systematically and looked at from the standpoint of how to communicate effectively with users to reduce the kind of misuse that she has reported and that's evident in lots of other areas. The fourth thing to talk about is I'm really heartened by the excellent work that EPA has done on ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 202 the registration review program, but the statistics that Ed Messina reported, 555 final and interim decisions made representing about 75 percent of the active ingredients while great, the vast majority of those are interim decisions and don't include consideration of the endocrine disruptor mandate in Section 408(p) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and don't include assessments of impacts on endangered and threatened species. I think EPA really needs to pay attention to and figure out what they're going to do to finish that essential work, and this agency should seek out and interact with a range of stakeholders to figure the most sensible efficient path forward to do the work that the statutes require them to do. Last point I want to cover is the 2016 certification and training rule and the information in the report that EPA is considering a rule-making to extend the deadline. I've got to say that that is very disappointing. The rule came out, as noted, in 2016. It gave a very clear timeline to the states. The states have been working on it and five years ought to have been enough for them to implement the changes that their systems required in order to come into compliance with the rule. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 203 So we understand and I appreciate the impact that COVID has had on states' ability to get the work done, but certainly hope that EPA will keep this extension as short as they possibly can. Thanks for the opportunity to comment, and I continue to be impressed by EPA's excellent work, but that work is something that still needs to go on and still has some important areas to address. Thank you. FACILITATOR: William, thank you very much for your comments and for getting those into the record. We really appreciate it. There is another speaker that I obviously skipped over. I was working off a list that was ordered a little bit differently. Sorry. Ray McAllister from CropLife America. Is Ray present? FACILITATOR 2: He is on the line. He asked to give his comments tomorrow instead of today. FACILITATOR: Okay, okay. Ray, we'll add you -- you may already be registered for tomorrow, so that's fine. And then let me do just another quick request to Abdajaleel Makowi, Anamika Gulotti, or Ashwath Hassan. Have any of them joined us? FACILITATOR 2: Not that I see. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 204 MR. MESSINA: And, Paul, Jeannie indicated in the chat that she has signed up. So I don't know if you have her name. FACILITATOR: Oh, okay. Hang on one second. Sorry, I had moved off to the chat and I was in the participant box. So okay, here we go, Jeannie Economos. Okay, yes, I didn't -- I don't see -- Jeannie, I don't see you on that list, but that doesn't matter. We're ready to receive your comments. MS. ECONOMOS: Okay, great. Thank you very much. I want to say thank you to all the presenters today. It was really informative and I really learned a lot and really appreciate the time and effort that everyone put into all the presentations. I want to address my question to the SENSOR program. I have a couple of questions and kind of a story. So my question is we did have a funded SENSOR program in Florida in the past, and I just wonder if the SENSOR program is taking into consideration underreporting and how the program addresses the underreporting, especially related to farmworkers and agriculture. So that's part of the question. The second part of the question is regarding ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 205 suspicious or suspected cases of pesticide exposure. So my understanding in Florida is that cases of suspected pesticide exposure are supposed to get documented even if they are not confirmed or are not a direct, a definite exposure. One example is in Florida we have a couple whose home is surrounded on three sides by orange groves and they've been living there for a couple of decades in the same place. And this past summer, for the first time, right after the spring of the orange groves, this couple both received very severe acute health symptoms. I have photographs of the woman whose face and hands and feet swelled up. In fact, she had to -- including her genital organs. She had to stay in the bathtub for two days because she was so swollen. She had extreme itching. Both of them, the husband and the wife, both had loss of appetite. The husband lost a lot of weight because he had loss of appetite. They did recover, but they had the symptoms for close to two weeks and the symptoms were consistent with streptomycin exposure. And the fields -- the citrus groves in Florida were approved for use of streptomycin as a pesticide. And we did report that to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 206 Health. And after their initial investigation, they said that they could not document it as even a suspected case of exposure. So I'm very concerned about that because the symptoms were consistent with streptomycin exposure and their symptoms did happen immediately after the spraying very close to their home on three sides of the citrus groves. So I say that example because I just -- I'm concerned that there is -- I have other examples as well, including of farmworkers -- but I'm just concerned that there's a vast underreporting. And I will also say that that underreporting is often because farmworkers are afraid to speak. The other case that we have, which I won't take your time unless you ask, is a farmworker who has serious acute health symptoms from exposure to ZeroTol 2.0., and her symptoms are consistent with that. And we have been asking her to -- we made a report, but she is afraid, she's getting harassment and retaliation at work. So she is afraid to come forward and be interviewed regarding her symptoms. So I'm just really concerned about how the SENSOR program addresses, takes into consideration or has some kind of estimate of the underreporting of pesticide exposure incidents. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 207 Thanks. FACILITATOR: Jeannie, thank you very much. Thanks for your comments. And again, not to sound like we're trying to just eat up time here, but just, Sarah, I'm looking at the I'm looking at the participant list. I don't see Abdajaleel, Anamika or Ashwath, unless you do. FACILITATOR 2: No, I do not see them on the line. FACILITATOR: Okay. MR. MESSINA: So, Paul, we can maybe take a 15-minute break and then pick up with the regularly scheduled time at 4:30. MS. ECONOMOS: Excuse me, that was not just a comment. That was a question. MS. JEWELL: Oh, well, is Dr. Alarcon still on the line. Would you like to speak to that? DR. ALARCON: Yes, I am on the line and I can respond to that question. Jeannie, thank you very much for your question. And to address the first question about underreporting, yes, we are aware that the system, SENSOR-Pesticides, is severely underreporting the cases. We don't have an estimate of how much is underreporting, but in our publications, we mentioned several reasons, and the ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 208 ones you have cited are the ones we included in our system. MS. ECONOMOS: (Inaudible). DR. ALARCON: So that will be a response to underreporting. And conducting a study for underreporting would be really complicated and we have decided to enter (inaudible) into looking at cases we have available and try to find solutions for -- common solutions for those cases. (Background talking.) FACILITATOR: Hey, folks, we have some folks that are speaking but they're not on mute. If you can please put yourselves on mute, that would be awesome. DR. ALARCON: So I hope that addresses the first question, and we agree with your statements. Regarding suspicious case statement, the system, SENSOR-Pesticides receives suspicious cases into our system. And the reason is, as we are working in a surveillance system, oftentimes, additional information may come to the public. For example, there may be new publications regarding symptoms that were not previously included in -- as symptoms with direct or causal relationship between exposure and the pesticide and effects, and then we review those cases regularly. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 209 When we do our analysis publications, we go and check every single suspicious cases to verify that there's no additional information. And as we have described in our system, we require two things -- just two new symptoms will be present to include as a case. So special cases sometimes have only one case and that's one of the reason why they are qualified as suspicious. Now, we are looking at the -- how the data in SENSOR is being submitted, it is the state's program (inaudible) that is going to analyze -- that (inaudible) do the first step in case ascertainment. There may be problems and what do we are trying to improve is when we do our clinical exercises, we focus on the case definition so we can improve cases of (inaudible). I hope that clarifies the question as well. MS. ECONOMOS: Thank you. FACILITATOR: Thank you, Dr. Alarcon. Let's see, I just wanted to address Damon's question in the chat about allowing the public to ask questions. So the public comment period, the official public comment period is to get comments only. It's not for an interaction with EPA. It's to present a stance or an opinion or provide information that might ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 210 be useful to EPA. It can be a rhetorical question, but it's not intended for an interaction, a public interaction with EPA. So that's your question, right, Damon? Is the public allowed to ask questions? It's an important question, but might be a difficult policy to allow for a future meeting, I'm just not sure if this is a question that belongs in a public hearing where we're -- they're taking comments -- EPA is taking comments on the documents and the presentations that have been made recently. MR. REABE: Yeah, thanks, Paul. She asked a really great question, and I'm glad it was answered. I'm just bringing it up because there will be public comment period again tomorrow and all subsequent meetings and so just making sure we're all aware that that's the policy. So when somebody provides public comment and they have -- they can ask a rhetorical question, but not to expect their question to be answered as it -- and, again, I don't mind at all. I think it was a great question and it was some great follow-up information, but it could unravel quite quickly if that becomes the typical the way that the public comment period is handled. FACILITATOR: Exactly. It caught me by ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 211 surprise that Dr. Alarcon responded to that question, but I didn't want to interrupt him. I felt like it wasn't -- no damage was done as the result of that. But I just want to make it clear to everybody that's on this call that the public comment period is not for a Q&A with EPA. It's just to present thoughts, ideas, considerations, rhetorical questions, concerns, and making those available to EPA in this particular forum. There may be other fora where you can interact with EPA in different ways, but not today on this -- in this forum. MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much for that. And my apologies. I just wanted to get the question answered, but that was a slip on my part. So thank you so much. FACILITATOR: Not a problem. I don't think we -- there was no damage done here. So I just wanted to set the record straight and that -- maybe for anybody that's on the call today that plans on speaking tomorrow, again, those same rules apply. And, Sarah, I'm assuming we have nobody else that's at least preregistered for today that's joined us . FACILITATOR 2: That is correct. FACILITATOR: Okay. I'm not used to being ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 212 this far ahead of schedule. That's why -- so 4:30 was the published -- let me see. Yeah. Was it 4:30 was the published time. MR. MESSINA: Yeah, it's 4:30. I think we can give people, you know, a quick bio break and pick up at 4:30 and do the announcement and see who has shown up. FACILITATOR: Yeah, that's what we should do. I agree with that, Ed. And so don't leave the meeting, just don't exit out, just like you did for lunch. Just put us on mute and close your video and we'll see you again in eight minutes. How's that? MS. BROWN: Sounds great. I have a question. Did I hear you correctly saying you were opening it up to all of public for comments or just the preregistered because I thought I heard you say to all anyone who wants to provide public comment? FACILITATOR: Yes, that's usually up to EPA. MS. BROWN: Okay. FACILITATOR: But my feeling was that if there was time permitting -- like let's say we had a 30-minute public comment period, and we had four preregistered and there was maybe someone who arrived at the meeting and wants now to make a comment, time permitting, we would allow that. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 213 MS. BROWN: Okay, gotcha. FACILITATOR: I believe. Usually in a nonvirtual environment, you would have walked over to the registration desk and signed up, right, to be a speaker at a public comment period. MS. BROWN: Right, right. FACILITATOR: So just correct me if I'm wrong, Shannon, it feels like we would be -- we would allow that, but we wouldn't necessarily go late into the night entertaining comment after comment. So does that answer your question, Jeannie? Do you -- it's no problem, time permitting, within that 4:00 to 4:30 time block for a member of the public that hasn't preregistered. We'll capture their name, we'll capture their affiliation and we'll take their comment. MS. BROWN: It was Jasmine, and I guess, Jeannie -- FACILITATOR: It will be a comment, but not questions. It's not like a Q&A. Did that answer your question? I'm sorry. MS. BROWN: Yes, sir. Thank you. FACILITATOR: Okay, sure thing. All right. See everybody at 4:30. (Brief break.) ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 214 FACILITATOR: Hello. Okay, it's about 4:31. And, hopefully, folks have taken just a quick break and now are returning to the meeting. And the reason that we are back is we had a public comment period scheduled for 4:30 p.m. today. We finished the rest of our agenda slightly ahead of time. So we did hear from two individuals, so that's -- three individuals, but we also have three on the list that we haven't heard from yet. So if they preregistered, they needed to be available at 4:30. So we're going to ask now -- I'm thinking -- just a minute ago, I asked Sarah and she said that none of the three have appeared. I just want to confirm that with her. FACILITATOR 2: Yes, that's correct. FACILITATOR: Okay. And I'll ask one more time, is there any member of the public, and that would be like everybody on this call, that would that would like to make a comment as part of this public comment period? (No response.) FACILITATOR: Okay. And then hearing that -- or not hearing that, Ed, I think we're really at the end of the day and I think you maybe just wanted to wrap up the day and get us ready for tomorrow. MR. MESSINA: Sounds good. Let me turn on my ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 215 video. So I thought today was really great, and if you thought today was great, stick around for tomorrow. We've got some excellent sessions on tap for you. To kind of show you the -- or just kind of walk through quickly the agenda, so tomorrow on day two, on the 28th, we're going to start at 11:00 a.m. as we did today. We have the emerging pathogens workgroup report out, session chair, Komal Jain and Tajah Blackburn was the EPA co-chair of that. The materials are on the PPDC website, so you can read the full document and then any presentations. We'll have our lunch lunch break from 12:20 to 1:00. Then we'll have our emerging technologies workgroup report out. Mano Basu chaired and I co- chaired that session as well. So a pretty long and extensive document and slides that we'11 go through tomorrow from 1:00 to 2:15. A good laboratory practice in inspection introduction. I wonder, Shannon, have slides been loaded for that yet? I know they were sort of working on them. Have they finally been uploaded? MS. JEWELL: They have, yes. I just got them on the website, in fact, and I will be sending those to the members and I can chat the link right this ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 216 second. Thank you. MR. MESSINA: Thank you so much, Shannon. And then 2:45 to 4:00, resistant management workgroup report out. David Shaw and Bill Chism were our co-chairs, I believe. And so they're going to talk about the resistance management workgroup report out with their presentation and recommendations. We'll talk a little bit about moving forward from 4:00 to 4:30 tomorrow. We'll have public comments from 4:30 to 5:00, and then we'll adjourn at 5:00. On the moving forward piece, I think one of the remaining questions to talk about in that session would be what are some topics that PPDC members would like to hear at the next session in the spring and then what is our stance and our goals and recommendations for the workgroups to either continue working or are they sort of done and we're releasing them to go on and do other things. So that's one of the -- sort of two of the issues that I'd like to cover on that close-out session is sort of agenda for the next session, any topics people would like to raise, and then the status of the workgroups moving forward once we've kind of entered in the presentations that we want to enter in or not, depending on how the voting goes. ------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 217 So thanks so much for your time today, for your great questions, for your great points. I really appreciate the interaction here. And with that, I'll kick it back to you, Paul. FACILITATOR: I think that's it. We're giving you the final word, Ed. MR. MESSINA: All right. FACILITATOR: So the agenda is done and we'll see everybody tomorrow. Thanks, everybody, for your attention today. MR. MESSINA: Take care so much. MS. JEWELL: Thank you so much, everyone. MR. MESSINA: Thanks, Shannon. Thanks for all the logistics. Bye, everyone. (The meeting was adjourned.) ------- |