EPA PROPOSES DEFINING PRIONS AS A PEST, REGULATING CONTROL PRODUCTS
News Date July 13, 2010
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has notified the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services of its intent to expand Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) definitions of “pest” to include prions and thus regulate prion-controlling products as pesticides.
Prion diseases are collectively referred to as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) and are untreatable and fatal; prions are composed almost entirely of protein, are often transmitted through ingestion, and affect the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) of infected individuals. Well known and documented TSE’s include Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) and Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease in humans. Other species with documented TSE’s include sheep and goats (scrapie), felines (Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy), antelope (exotic ungulate encephalopathy), and deer, elk and moose (Chronic Wasting Disease).
View the Federal Register Docket. Read more about prions on the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website. (By: Jason Markovich, Contact: Nathan Bowen)