In the produce business, getting the first crops of the season to market
is so profitable that growers will do almost anything to beat the
competition. In Florida, for example, citrus growers pick grapefruit from
September to November--a full two months earlier than normal--by ripening them with lead arsenate.
A combination of lead and arsenic, it is used on 30% of Florida's
grapefruit crop. The resulting grapefruits contain average lead levels of
170 parts per billion (ppb), compared with the new drinking water standard
of 15ppb. What's more, residues of inorganic arsenic average 130ppb in fruit and 50ppb in the juice, both of which exceed drinking water standards.
Lead causes brain damage and mental and physical growth retardation in children. Arsenic is a known carcinogen and causes severe nervous disorders, and is a gastrointestinal, kidney, liver and blood toxin.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting a ten year (???) Special Review" of the use of lead arsenate. However, results of the study are not expected to be released until the current supply of the toxin has been "consumed". Since the EPA has been asleep at the wheel, the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP) has been urging consumers to not buy grapefruit until the main crop comes in December. It probably wouldn't hurt to let the produce people at your local market know how much you appreciate having been spared the difficulties of knowing your fresh produce has been ripened with lead arsenate

I know the use of Lead Arsenate is banned in California, but is it still being sprayed on edidable grapefruit in Florida? - Millet

Millet, I thought you hated the EPA for interfeering with free commerce? Now you want them to stop these farmers from making a little extra money on their crop?

Just so you know, I am all for getting toxic chemicals out of our food and environment-- especially toxic metals --they never degrade. Analysis of pesticide and metal residues was what I did at EPA for much of my career.

I do know that there can be powerful lobbies at work behind some of the political decisions within EPA (and other government agencies), but ultimately, I believe science wins out, but those powerful lobbies definitely slow things down.

The points you made about the toxicity are true. Lead is really bad, especially for pregnant women where it can cause birth defects and in children where it causes brain damage.

I am glad I grow my own grapefruit. Thanks for the info Millet.

Lead arsenate (and any other form of arsenic compound) has not been used on any Florida citrus since at least the early 1990s, maybe the late 1980s. I don't recall the exact date the ban went into effect, but it was a long time ago.
Malcolm

After writing my previous post, I googled the subject, and several sites seem to indicate that it is still being used. I'm not sure where they get that information. Certainly, I've never heard that the ban was lifted, and the current list of registered chemicals for citrus (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/CG017) lists no arsenic-containing materials at all.

Malcolm

Arsenic was sprayed on Florida's grapefruit to lower the acid content in the fruit and for fruit maturity, but the spraying of arsenic on edible food was never a wise decision in the first place. - Millet

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/PI085
Operation Cleansweep was initiated in 1995 with original intent of collecting lead arsenate, a widely used pesticide in Florida citrus production, but banned for use by the EPA in 1978.

.....Alan.

Alan, thanks for the information. Over the years that Lead Arsenate was being sprayed on edible grapefruit in Florida, it must certainly had to have entered into the minds of the growers while they were spraying their fruit, that the possibility of doing so was not beneficial to the health of their customers. - Millet

Lead arsenate on grapefruit seems to have been in use since at least 1945 but for reasons that I haven't discovered in a quicky search it wasn't effective in California or Arizona the way it was here. I suspect it would have been used a great deal more widely if it were.

I'm glad they don't use it any more. I thought that stuff had gone out with the boll weevil.

.....Alan.

Millet, where did you hear that FL growers were still using lead arsenate?

I think a little backtracking is a little more prudent
thing to do on this issue. We can read from an online
report in 2001 that claims that Florida was spraying
Lead arsenate on Grapefruit but what was conveniently
omitted was that the chemical had already been banned
prior to that untimely whistleblower's edict. What was
done in the past may not still be used today but people
do not go back in and find out the jest of the claim but
instead run with it and fear that the banned chemical
use for consumptive purposes is still being used today
which is false. That is not to say that Grapefruit from
other countries coming into the US are not laced with
Lead or Arsenate but bona fide US Citrus production
fruit are free of Lead arsenate.

Universities can still petition to use Lead arsenate
for experimental purposes such as for oxidation and
phosphorylation studies on Citrus Mitochondria but
any usage of those edible fruit for consumption are
reasonably nil in the US. The state Departments of
Agriculture for various states would come absolutely
unglued if any Citrus had been sprayed with Lead
arsenate for consumptive purposes today, even from
old on hand or imported in stockpiles of the chemical.

lead arsenate Proposed Tolerance Revocation

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/insect-mite/fenitrothion-methylpara/lead-arsenate/prof-calcium-ars-revoke.html

Jim

Thanks Jim,
That points up a problem you can run into with information on the web--there is often no way to tell when something was written. Many universities have put volumes of information that they have in their possesion into electronic format and made it available on the web. Sometimes that information is missing a date or the dateing information is elsewhere, but not easily found.

I definitely support EPA's banning of persistient toxic chemicals from our environment and there is nothing more persistient than toxic metals such as lead, arsenic and mercury.

skeet, speaking of which, I would have loved EPA to ban the sale of mine tailings sold to the public as Ironite. It contains a lot of arsenic and other heavy metals. Some lobbyists from the mining industry have convinced the unscientifically appointed decision makers at EPA to approve the creative way of disposing their pollutants to the public. You can read more about Ironite by searching this forum alone.

Another thing to consider here is that if some unscrupulous citrus grower still had an old stock of lead arsenate and decided to use it illegally, he would be caught immediately. The use of arsenate so dramatically reduces the acid content of fruit on any given date, for the variety, that any fruit coming into a packinghouse that tested abnormally low for acid would become instantly suspect, and the state inspector (always present in each packinghouse) would demand an immediate test for As. Oops -- big fines and maybe jail time for that! And now, with all the canker/greening situation, fruit is simply not entering the supply lines from any source other than fully inspected, licensed packinghouses.

As for imported fruit -- yes that is a possibility, since most of that fruit is not in any way tested for any aspect of safety -- an ongoing sore spot with Fla. and Cal. growers, about the NAFTA treaty. Still, I have never heard that anyone is claiming Mexico or other countries are using arsenate, and I have no reason to think it is happening.

Skeet, I did not hear that Florida was, or that Florida was not, still using Lead Arsenate. My post was just a question, and that question was, "IS Florida Still Spraying Lead Arsenate on Grapefruit?" And the answer as given on this thread is no Florida is not still spraying Lead Arsenate. However, I did find an interesting assumption. In June of 1988 a Mr. Albert Heier at EPA said, "Because production of lead arsenate has ceased, consumers need not worry much longer about whether grapefruit is safe. All the existing lead arsenate was sprayed on trees last spring". (which would have been the spring of 1987 and it might have been I don't know) However, in Alan's post above, according to the University of Florida IFAS, eight years later in 1995, during Operation Cleansweep more than 70,000 pounds of lead arsenate was still being collected from growers. When EPA declaired their ban on Lead Arsenate's use in Florida, they allowed its continued use by the growers untill all the growers supplies were completely used up. Evidently there was plenty of supply still in the hands of growers, at least in 1995. - Millet