Talk:Lindane: Difference between revisions

Pharmacology B‑class Mid‑importance

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why is benzene hexachloride redirected to this article ?? i dont smell any aromaticity in lindane ! ���Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.62.155.3 (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the second sentence of this article, where it says that "Lindane is the gamma isomer of hexachlorocyclohexane (“gamma-HCH”), formerly known as benzene hexachloride...."Rick lightburn (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 Bill Summary - A04162 Back | New York State Bill Search | Assembly Home See Bill Text

A04162 Summary: BILL NO A04162A SAME AS Same as S 5619 SPONSOR Weisenberg COSPNSR Dinowitz, Ortiz, Perry, Espaillat, Arroyo, Gottfried MLTSPNSR Acampora, Alfano, Benjamin, Boyland, Brennan, Brodsky, Clark, Cohen A

          Colton, Englebright, Gordon, Greene, John, Koon, Lafayette, Lifton,
          Lupardo, Mayersohn, McEneny, O`Donnell, Peralta, Pheffer, Robinson,
          Tedisco

Add S2507, Pub Health L

Bans the sale, use, and prescription of any product containing hexachlorocyclohexane, commonly known as Lindane, and its isomers.

A04162 Actions: BILL NO A04162A

02/09/2005 referred to health 05/10/2005 defeated in health 05/31/2005 amend and recommit to health 05/31/2005 print number 4162a 06/16/2005 reported referred to codes

A04162 Votes:

A04162 Memo:

BILL NUMBER:  A4162A

TITLE OF BILL :  An act to amend the public health law, in relation

to banning the sale, use, and prescription of any product containing the substance commonly known as Lindane

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL : To restrict the sale, use, and

prescription of any product containing hexachlorocyclohexane, commonly known as Lindane, and its isomers, except as specified in Section 2507.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS : Section 1. Adds a new section, 2507

of the public health law.

Section 2. Sets the effective date.

JUSTIFICATION : Lindane is a synthetic pesticide used in agriculture

and as a treatment for head lice and scabies. Consumers use Lindane most often for the treatment of head-lice and scabies in the form of creams, lotions, and shampoos (Kwell). However, extended exposure to Lindane causes the absorption of its chemicals into the skin, the digestive system, and the respiratory tract, resulting in seizures and, in rare cases, death. Medical and toxicology studies have labeled Lindane a possible carcinogen. The World Health Organization (WHO), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Health and Human Services, confirm these findings, reporting a six fold increase in the number of farmers who have developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma after exposure to Lindane. Recent case studies report high rates of childhood brain cancer due to treatment with Lindane shampoo. Furthermore, studies have proven that Lindane causes a potentially fatal or lifetime condition called aplastic anemia, the deficiency of essential nutrients in the blood and a precursor to leukemia. Adverse effects have resulted from recommended dosage of this product.

Lindane is exceptionally toxic to the environment. The EPA categorizes Lindane as a persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic pollutant, meaning it remains in the environment for a protracted period of time. After its use, patients rinse lindane shampoos and creams down the sink or shower drains. Since waste water treatment plants do not remove Lindane successfully, it passes through groundwater streams, rivers, lakes, and the ocean. In California, one dose of Lindane was shown to pollute six million gallons of water. Even a small amount of Lindane when ingested is lethal. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency has severely restricted the agricultural use of Lindane.

In 2003, The Food and Drug Administration repackaged Lindane and included a more detailed and restrictive warning. They classify Lindane as a second choice treatment to more efficient and less toxic alternatives and state that children, the elderly, and pregnant women should not use this product due to its toxicity. Hence, Lindane containing treatments continue to be available by prescription. Although the National Pediculosis Association reports that Lindane products have caused over 500 cases of adverse effects, over one million people receive prescriptions for Lindane each year in the United States.

There is no viable reason to keep Lindane on the consumer market in light of its dangers. It is a deadly poison that safer alternatives can easily replace. Eighteen countries world-wide have banned the use and distribution of Lindane. In addition, since the FDA has restricted the use of Lindane concerning children, the group most likely to become infested with head lice, there is no high demand for this product.

Although Lindane is no longer commercially produced in the United States, it remains commercially available in all states except California. Legislation is necessary to ensure that this dangerous product is removed completely from the consumer market.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY : New bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS : None.

EFFECTIVE DATE : This act shall take effect 180 days after it shall

become law.

Harris GL, et al, Pesticide application and deposition - their importance to pesticide leaching to surface water, Proceedings of the Brighton Crop Protection Conference: Pests and diseases - 1992, Volume 2, 477-486, BCPC 1992.

EPA Bans Lindane for Use as Pesticide The toxic chemical has been used on crop seeds since the '50s. The FDA still allows medical use Aug 2, 2006 | Marla Cone | Los Angeles Times A highly toxic pesticide that is one of the last such holdouts from the 1950s is being banned in the United States after a lengthy review by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA decided not to renew the registration of lindane, an insecticide used to treat seeds for wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley and sorghum crops. In response, the manufacturers agreed to cease sales in the United States, EPA officials said Tuesday.

Lindane is a chlorinated pesticide, much like DDT and similar compounds that were outlawed in most of the world in the 1970s; it is already banned in 52 countries. It does not break down in the environment, so it builds up in food chains and in human bodies, and scatters globally via the oceans and air, reaching even people and animals in the Arctic.

For years, environmentalists have sought a ban in the U.S., especially since Mexico and Canada have already acted. The United Nations was considering adding lindane to a global treaty phasing out chemicals considered the world's most hazardous.

Kristin Shafer of Pesticide Action Network North America, an activist group based in San Francisco, said Tuesday that she was "pleased EPA has finally done the right thing."

Jim Jones, director of the EPA's pesticide program, said the agency weighed lindane's toxicity and its persistence in the environment against its "very few benefits for users," considering the fact that safer alternatives for treating corn, wheat and other grain seeds were available.

"We're making a decision today that I feel very good about," he said. "Most of the uses were deleted a long time ago, and the EPA has taken a number of actions culminating in this one today, where the remaining uses are being voluntarily canceled."

The EPA has acknowledged the hazards of lindane for several years, calling it "quite toxic to humans." It is classified as a possible carcinogen, and in high doses it damages the human nervous system, liver and immune system.

The only remaining U.S. use of lindane is for prescription shampoos and lotion treatments for head lice and scabies, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, not the EPA. Lindane prescriptions have been banned in California since 2002, and most U.S. doctors no longer prescribe them.

"It's good to the see the U.S. finally stepping up to the plate" on farm use, said Ann Heil, a supervising engineer at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts who has researched lindane and lobbied the Legislature for the state ban on lindane prescriptions. But, she said, "it is baffling why the federal government has now banned uses of lindane for farming, but still allows it to be put on children's heads."

The decision to end lindane's use as an agricultural pesticide is the culmination of a 10-year review of the more than 200 active ingredients in pesticides that was ordered by Congress in 1996 under the Food Quality Protection Act.

The law transformed the EPA's safety standards for evaluating pesticide risks, especially to children, and has led to changes in the allowable uses of many chemicals.

"Virtually every chemical that went through that process had some meaningful changes in the way they could be used," Jones said. Seventeen popular chemicals have been banned since the review began.

Lindane has been used on U.S. crops since 1950. The EPA heavily restricted it in 1983, limiting its use to grain seeds to prevent pests from eating the plants. It is banned in the European Union, Japan and several other Asian countries, South Africa, and much of Latin and South America.

If the companies had not voluntarily agreed to cease U.S. distribution, the process of the EPA canceling its registration could have dragged on for years, Jones said. Instead, it will become effective in about two months. Farmers can still legally use lindane products already in stock.

Up to 230,000 pounds of lindane have been used yearly in the United States, mostly to treat corn and wheat seed. California growers already were scaling back its use, reporting application of only 775 pounds in 2004, compared with nearly 5,000 pounds four years earlier, according to state records.

Illinois draft of lindane ban

94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2005 and 2006HB1362

Introduced 02/09/05, by Rep. Daniel J. Burke

SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:

410 ILCS 620/17.2 new

   Amends the Illinois Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Provides that no person shall sell, deliver, offer for sale, hold for sale, give away, use, or prescribe any product used for the treatment of lice or scabies in human beings that contains the pesticide chemical lindane. Effective January 1, 2006. 

I think that the The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Public Health Advisory at http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/lindane/lindanePHA.htm was prepared by the federal government and falls under the public domain. See Wikipedia:Public domain resources#US Government.  WODUP  04:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article isn't the place for an essay on who manufactures, imports, distributes, and sells Lindane-based pharmaceuticals, or advocacy relating to its removal or anticipated removal from the marketplace. It's more than enough to note that Lindane is banned for almost all applications in the US. Perhaps there is another article where discussion of the health and political consequences of pesticide use would be more appropriate. Joseph N Hall 00:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that that section in question has/had a POV problem and your edits go a long way toward solving this, I disagree that the info about import/manufacturing/who sells lindane has no place in the article. Other articles about pharmaceuticals and pesticides contain this type of info, and i don't see any reason why we should treat this one any different. I'm going to re insert this useful info, while leaving the POV-ish stuff out.Yilloslime 20:15, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, I was just trying to quickly remove the fluff. Thanks for taking the time to do a more thoughtful job. Joseph N Hall 21:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, way back when, my grandfather used to spray that stuff in his orchard ... he was a practical guy who kept supplies of assorted "useful" pesticides around long after they were banned. Shudder. Joseph N Hall 21:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On 4/19/2009, the "Morton Grove Lawsuit" section was edited by a representative of the National Pediculosis Association. Npa-representative-01 (talk) 17:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On 9/11/2007, I removed a range on copyrighted materials from the article (verbatim reports from newspapers), in the subsection on "Adverse Reactions" I made more reflective of FDA documents, and brought the section on the Morton Grove lawsuit more in line with the status of the lawsuit. It should be notied that the bill frequently introduced into the NY legislature to ban lindane remains, as I understand it, still in committee. LHL Rick 19:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) (same as "Rick Lightburn")[reply]

On 9/18/2007, User:Yilloslime:Yilloslime changed line 89, by changing so called "fact-sheets" to fact-sheets, commenting that the scare quotes were a dead giveaway. First, they aren't "scare quotes:" no one agrees that certain literature distributed is actually factual, but everyone agrees that this literature is called "fact sheets." So the quotes are simply agreement that that's what they're called, without agreeing that they're factual. Second, whatever they are, I'm not clear of what they are a dead giveaway. What do they giveaway? I've reverted to the version with the quotes. LHL Rick 23:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The scare quotes give away that the sentence is biased--i.e. the POV of the author of the sentence is clearly on the side of Morton Grove. Sorry if this wasn't clear from my edit summary. Anyways Rick, your work on this article has greatly improved it, but you are wrong about the scare quotes and the phrase "so called". Take a look at the guidelines on this, it's pretty clear cut. The subject of lawsuit are factsheets issued by the Ecology Center, and nothing is gained or made any clearer by putting the word factsheet in scare quotes or using the term "so-called." On the other hand, the use of the quotes and the term "so-called" "suggest that a term [factsheet] is invalid"--something that the courts will decide, not wikipedia editors. Hope this makes sense. Happy editting. Also, I'd suggest that you pick one user name ("Rick Lightburn" or LHL Rick") and stick with it. Using two can be interpetted as sockpuppetry.Yilloslime 00:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean to hide behind the two names, and I readily admit it is sloppy. (I was working on a different computer, and couldn't remember my password.) I've made a change that (I hope) clarifies that the defendants in the case called them fact sheets. I hope this achieves a more neutral POV. Rick lightburn 06:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Rick. Again let me begin by commending you for the great work you've done on this page. It's a lot better off now than before you began. Kudos. But I have almost as much of problem with "what the defendants styled 'fact sheets' " as I did with "so-called 'factsheets.' " While your edit did not contain any of the official WP:Words to avoid it still runs up against the spirit of that guideline. And it still has those scare-quotes. (Whether you intend them to be scare quotes or not, the reader will always interpet them as such when they enclose a single word that is not obviously a direct quote.) Clearly the lawsuit was filed because the plantiffs believe that not everything in the factsheets is accurate, so there is no need cast any additional doubt on their veracity by describing them as "what the defendants styled 'fact sheets.'" The reader will interpret the phase "what the defendants styled 'fact sheets'" to suggest that the author of the phrase also doubts truthfulness of the factsheets, and thus the statement violates WP:NPOV. Hope this is clear. Yilloslime (t) 02:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Yilloslime. I'm trying to be scientific, and yet I need to be on guard for NPOV, since my current position is not disinterested. I'm just resistant to using "fact" in anything that the defendants produced. How about we just call it "literature?" (This is editing at the nits, I admit, but that margin is where the law works.) Rick lightburn 18:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think simply calling it 'factsheets' works best, but I can live with 'literature'.Yilloslime (t) 22:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that 'factsheets' without quotes is problematic, because they imply what is written is factual. For example, if the Bush campaign wrote about the likely effects Obama campaign's plans for the health care system, concluding that it was harmful and risky, and published this in a factsheet, this would (or should) be described as a "factsheet" and not a factsheet. While I agree that in normal cases quotes usually have the 'scare quotes' effect, a written document must in my view have a highly undisputable nature to be called a factsheet without quotes, because the word "fact" in the name implies that what is written is true. It's difficult to read from this whether the Ecology centre has sufficient scientific impartiality. 94.196.242.99 (talk) 18:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the "Ad" tag because the language in that section did not violate any of Wikipedia's standards for not being a soapbox, promotion, or advertisement (even if it may have language similar to disclaimers found in pharmaceutical advertisements.) Rick lightburn (talk) 04:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the 'Ad' tag from the section called Adverse Reactions to Lindane Pharmaceuticals. According to the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary (Copyright 2007-2008), the very definition of advertising “is to call public attention to especially by emphasizing desirable qualities so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize.” Further, the restriction on advertising within Wikipedia is part of its policy against using Wikipedia as a soapbox--indeed the tag refers to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT#SOAPBOX. Accordingly, the section entitled “Adverse Reactions to Lindane Pharmaceuticals” does not promote in any way the use or sale of any lindane pharmaceutical product nor does it emphasize desirable qualities of lindane medications. To the contrary, the section details information on safety risks, some of which are serious. All of the information is taken directly from FDA-approved prescription labeling, including the boxed warning for these products, and information from a 2003 FDA postmarketing safety analysis. Thus, an Ad tag is not appropriate. Rick lightburn (talk) 17:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the bold wedges is pointing the wrong way in the image

I have now replaced it. -- Ed (Edgar181) 00:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The PDF on the Ecology centre's webpage (link 41?) appears to have been removed. Since this seems vital to understand the 'lawsuit' paragraph, and to make the reader some possibility of judging themself whether the lawsuit was indeed a SLAPP lawsuit or merited, could it be tracked down?94.196.242.99 (talk) 18:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]