Isaret Jeffers-Chavez of Colectivo Arbol offers masks and face shields to farmworkers in Florida in 2021.Ivy Ceballo/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was permanently suspending its approval of the widely used pesticide, Dacthal, amid a barrage of evidence of damaging, lasting effects on reproductive and fetal health—most notably among pregnant farmworkers. It is the most significant action the agency has taken on a pesticide in decades.

Dacthal, the trade name of dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate (DCPA), is used to prevent weeds from growing and has been used on a variety of crops like strawberries, spinach, celery, and garlic since the late 1950s.

The historic action comes after years of delays, mostly on the part of its manufacturer, the agricultural conglomerate AMVAC, which took 11 years to submit full data on its product—forcing the EPA to delay its decision on the chemical. The agency classified the chemical as a potential carcinogen in 1995; it has been banned in the European Union since 2009.

“We’ve known for quite a long time that [Dachtal] is really precarious in terms of exposure to mothers during pregnancy or in the preconception........

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