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Vol. 11 issue 4, Fall 2006

The Turf Pesticides and Cancer Risk Database is Now Online
The Ribbon 

Heather Clark, Ph.D.
BCERF Research Associate

The BCERF program has recently launched an easy-to-access, searchable online database that provides cancer risk information for chemicals found in over 2,800 turf and lawn care pesticide products. The Turf Pesticides and Cancer Risk Database integrates information on chemicals evaluated for carcinogenicity by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with 111 active ingredients found in turf and lawn care pesticides registered for use in New York State (NYS).

Search several ways: Chart A Users can search for information several ways: by product (1) or active ingredient (2), or by cancer risk category (3).

Find cancer risk information:

Cancer risk information in the database is available in several forms. Users can look up or search by the EPA cancer risk category assigned to a particular chemical active ingredient, such as "Carcinogenic to Humans" or "Possible Human Carcinogen." Detailed descriptions are provided by clicking on the Cancer Risk Categories link in the More Info box on the left side of the page (4).

Additional cancer and other health risk information is included in EPA risk management documents that are available for some but not all of the active ingredients in the database. The Bibliography (5) provides a complete listing of the risk management documents currently available. These documents are also provided on the Results page for each active ingredient search where available. Risk management documents, known as Re-registration Eligibility Decisions, or RED documents, are documents provided by EPA as part of the pesticide re-registration process. For each chemical being re-registered for use in a pesticide product, the documents provide details on how the EPA evaluated the chemical and its associated human and environmental health risks and determined what levels and types of use would be acceptable.

Additional detailed information about pesticide registration and re-registration is available in the More Info box (6). Information on interpreting cancer risk is also available to view or print (7).

Find pesticide products: Chart B

Since the full names of pesticide products are often long and complicated, a search using one or more keywords (8) enables quick and easy access to corresponding products. Products in the database are limited to those that have ever been registered for turf and lawn use in NYS, and then only those that include active ingredients evaluated for cancer risk by EPA. Cancelled products (9) are included because BCERF focus groups with turf pesticide applicators revealed that many applicators are interested in the risks of products that they may have used in the distant past but no longer use. Product results can be sorted by name alphabetically or by EPA registration number (10).

Get product details: Chart C

Clicking on a product takes you to the Product Details page (11) where product-specific information can be found. Terms on this page and elsewhere in the database are hyperlinked to their definitions in the Glossary (12), which is always a click away on every page in the Search & Help box on the left side of the page. Clicking on a product's active ingredient (13) takes you to the Active Ingredient page for that particular chemical.

Get active ingredient details: Chart D

You can get to the Active Ingredient page from the Product Details page, the Browse All button or the Active Ingredient menu on the Home/Search page, or via the active ingredient list produced from a cancer risk category search. Once here, a variety of active-ingredient-specific information is available, including the cancer risk category (14) and the species of laboratory animal tested and tumor types found (15). An important note on this page informs users that cancer risk classifications are specific to active ingredients, not products, and that a variety of risk information found in EPA risk management documents should be used to estimate the actual cancer risk associated with use of a particular pesticide product (16). Links to Interpreting Cancer Risk, EPA risk management documents, and turf and lawn care products that include the active ingredient are included on this page.

At this time, The Turf Pesticides and Cancer Risk Database does not include all active ingredients and associated turf and lawn care products registered in New York State. Cancer risk has not been fully evaluated for many active ingredients. Cancer risk information is not available for all chemicals because federal pesticide registration laws have, until recently, only required full evaluations of cancer risk for chemicals that will be used in pesticides that also have food-crop uses. Federal legislation effective October 1, 2006, now requires that, over time, all chemicals proposed for pesticide registration or re-registration are evaluated for a variety of health risks, including cancer. The process of accumulating new cancer risk information on these chemicals will take many years. The Turf Pesticides and Cancer Risk Database will be updated as this information becomes available.

Acknowledgements

The Turf Pesticides and Cancer Risk Database was produced by Heather Clark, Research Associate; Ellen Hartman, staff writer; and Suzanne Snedeker, Associate Director of Translational Research, BCERF program, Sprecher Institute for Comparative Cancer Research, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University. Web programming was done by Penny Ciccone, Mary Stauble, Mari Stewart, and Phyllis Highland, College of Veterinary Medicine Information Technology, and Sean Gardner, computer consultant. Additional valuable assistance was provided by undergraduate research assistants Devi Chandrasekaran, Chloe Ota, and Melissa Sherwin. Pesticide product information has been provided courtesy of the Cornell Pesticide Management Education Program (PMEP) and the Pesticide Sales and Use Reporting (PSUR) Project. Pesticide product information is also accessible via the New York State Product, Ingredient, and Manufacturer System (PIMS) database, developed and maintained by PMEP. We would like to acknowledge the special contributions of William Smith, Senior Extension Associate, PMEP; Robert Warfield, Senior Program Analyst, PSUR; and Fion Lee, Active Ingredient Project Manager, PSUR, for their many contributions to the content of this database. We would also like to anonymously acknowledge our volunteer usability testers, and others, whose input contributed greatly to improving the user interface of the database. Funding for the development of this database was provided by the New York State Departments of Health and Environmental Conservation, and the US Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the New York State Departments of Health and Environmental Conservation or the US Department of Agriculture.

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Last Update 12.22.06