Trump’s EPA Could Allow Teenage Workers To Handle Dangerous Pesticides

"Officials have signaled they may eliminate the age requirements for working with toxic chemicals on farms and other worksites."

"If the Environmental Protection Agency follows through with a reform now under consideration, teenage farmworkers and other working minors would once again be allowed to handle dangerous pesticides while on the job.

The EPA is now reevaluating a 2015 rule that tightened safety standards for farmworkers. In particular, the agency is considering changing or scrapping the requirement that anyone working with pesticides in agriculture be at least 18 years old.

Doctors had called for those restrictions to be put in place because pesticides can increase the risk of cancer or impact brain development in children."

Dave Jamieson reports for HuffPost January 10, 2018.