The Los Angeles-based Amvac Chemical Corp. is making a booming business fueling a double-digit revenue growth by selling some of the world’s most dangerous pesticides.
In its unusual business practice, Amvac has bought the rights to older pesticides from larger companies, many of the pesticides being at risk of being banned or restricted out of safety concerns.
The company has struggled hard to keep those dangerous and hazardous chemicals on the market as long as possible by either hiring scientists or lawyers to help fight with the regulatory agencies.
True, it is profitable, but Amvac’s this focus on older pesticides is costing human health and the environment hard. The EPA and state records, regulatory investigations and a string of lawsuits informed.
The company’s pesticides have led to accidents that involved evacuation of neighborhoods. IT has also poisoned scores of field workers in California and elsewhere.
Steve Schatzow, a former director of the EPA’s pesticide program and now an attorney for pesticide firms said,
There’s something here rather unique, which is a company that basically goes intentionally after chemicals that are in trouble because of health and safety concerns. (Amvac) buys them up at a discount price from the major chemical companies who no longer want to be associated (with them).
