Past Dow Reporting Problems

In 1995, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that Dow had intentionally not reported complaints of adverse chlorpyrifos effects. All adverse effect complaints are required to be reported under federal law. The failure by Dow to report the complaints was only uncovered because the complaints had progressed to the point of becoming lawsuits filed against Dow and/or users of chlorpyrifos. The discovery involved 249 health related lawsuits. Finding 249 unreported health complaints that had actually progressed into lawsuits would certainly indicate that there would have been a multitude of additional complaints that had simply not progressed into lawsuits. Only a small fraction of complaints ever progress into a lawsuit. Amazingly the EPA did nothing to go beyond just fining Dow for the discovery of the unreported complaints. They didn't even attempt to answer the next obvious question of how many complaints were going unreported? Dow was caught red-handed, blatantly not complying with the law and the EPA put virtually no effort into correcting Dow's behavior. Maybe this is why Dow Managers say "There's no sharp tacks in that box" referring to the EPA and the risks to Dow of the EPA understanding how Dow operates.

How the EPA came to know of the 249 lawsuits is also of interest. It appears that an outside source (outside the EPA) doing an investigation of chlorpyrifos lawsuits found these complaints through a search of court records and correctly suspected that Dow had probably never reported them to the EPA.  They brought the lawsuits to the attention of the EPA for the EPA to reconcile against Dow's reports and that's how Dow was caught.

The EPA does not publicly report details of adverse incidents so its impossible for anyone outside the EPA to reconcile this type information. According to the EPA, what Dow does report lacks sufficient details to utilize this information to actually reconcile the adverse complaints. Common sense would certainly believe that the EPA would conduct audits of the incidents that are reported to them but they don't. This gives companies like Dow the incentive to ignore compliance because the chance of being caught is extremely remote.

Dow was fined $732,000 for the failure to report the 249 complaints and during the next five years Dow was again fined several more times for continuing to fail to report additional new complaints. Only because of media news reports were these new unreported incidents even uncovered by the EPA. With the unethical and illegal business behavior Dow was clearly demonstrating, it's unbelievable the EPA never investigated beyond this point to determine:

1. How many complaints were actually occurring.

2. If Dow was intentionally under-reporting adverse effect complaints.

3. If Dow had internal procedures in place which intentionally deterred reporting of adverse incidents.

4. If this was how Dow was handling other products as well.

5. Who at Dow was responsible for these reporting problems. 

These all would have seemed to be very likely next steps for the EPA, especially when Dow had been caught in an obvious disregard for complying with the law. Certainly many people played a part in supporting this type behavior in Dow but it was initiated in the top management of the company. The need for an expanded investigation is even more compelling because Dow has continued to repeatedly fail to report new complaints and because of additional facts brought forth in the information compiled and presented here.

Dow's Excuse

What was Dow's explanation for the adverse incidents not being reported? 

Dow managers said that the unreported incidents in question, were frivolous complaints brought without merit. They clearly took it upon themselves to become judge and jury of the true nature of those complaints. They decided by themselves that the complaints did not merit the need to be reported. Or was this just an excuse by managers to explain away the fact that they were hiding adverse incidents and the mandatory reporting of those complaints? This should have raised critical questions about how many other complaints were not being reported. It would certainly indicate that a very large number of additional complaints that were going unreported since only a small number of complaints actually ever  progress to become lawsuits. It should have raised questions about how Dow was conducting business in general and the ethics of this company. It certainly seems that the EPA should have been interested to see if Dow uses the same business tactics with their other products as well.

All of the discovered non-reported complaints involved medical ailments such as headaches, nausea, etc. and many involved situations where the complainants were not able to stay inside their residences due to ailments which they believed was caused by air-borne or surface chlorpyrifos contamination from the application of chlorpyrifos insecticide products. These complaints clearly indicated that there were problems with the use of chlorpyrifos. Dow was hiding them to stop any attempt to limit chlorpyrifos use.

As part of the $732,000 fine, the EPA forced Dow to train their employees in the requirements of FIFRA adverse reporting.  It has been noted by insiders in Dow that chlorpyrifos's very strong odor and what is now known to be chlorpyrifos's volatility caused a large number of the complaints. Dow's answer to limit the burden of filing all the complaints after the first fine was to instruct their employees to refer all complaint callers to the national poison control center. According to Dow Managers' instructions and explanation, if the complainant was referred to the Poison Control Center the burden of reporting became the Center's responsibility and it eliminated the employees' responsibility to file the complaint reports.  Dow again was creating a method to avoid reporting adverse incident complaints.

For Dow's customers who actually use the products and who initially receive most of the complaints, training in complaint handling procedures had been very limited or non-existent.  Because the end-use customer handles the majority of all of the complaints and because they are not required to file the complaints, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of adverse effect incidents have gone unreported.  Many users indicate they have received hundreds of complaints concerning headaches and nausea associated with chlorpyrifos' odor.  The odor-associated complaints were a major reason many chlorpyrifos users decided to switch to alternative products.

FIFRA Reporting Requirements

Reporting is mandatory for any adverse effect complaint involving a pesticide under FIFRA; the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; section CHAPTER 6, SUBCHAPTER II, Sec. 136d, (a) (2).  "If at any time after the registration of a pesticide the registrant has additional factual information regarding unreasonable adverse effects on the environment of the pesticide, the registrant shall submit such information to the Administrator."

The intent of this portion of FIFRA is to uncover problems not discovered or apparent during the registration of a pesticide or to uncover those problems that may arise during changes in the use of a pesticide.  It is a very important discovery tool for the EPA and for the protection of our environment and health.  Reporting of adverse effect incidents have no statute of limitations for being reported by registrants to the EPA but are required to be reported to the EPA within 90 days of the registrant becoming aware of the incident. This makes Dow still liable for all past incidents that have not been reported but that they are aware of having occurred, all those that they have hidden.

back to top

*Dursban, Lorsban, Equity, Empire, Reldan, Pageant, and Tenure are registered trademarks of Dow AgroSciences