COVID-19, FIFRA, and EPA — A Conversation with Lisa Campbell

This week, I sat down with Lisa Campbell, my business partner of many years and one of the nation’s foremost legal experts on the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Given Lisa’s expertise, we engaged in a very timely discussion about the approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of products under FIFRA to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.  EPA has been deluged with applications to approve new products and/or new uses of existing products to combat the virus.  Lisa explains how antimicrobial pesticide products play an important role in public health and safety, the kinds of antimicrobial product categories regulated by EPA (including sanitizers, sterilants, disinfectants, and others), how approved products are deployed to combat the novel pathogen that causes COVID-19, and what EPA is doing to fast-track the approval process to get products out there to protect public health.  And as important as the federal EPA is in this regard, Lisa also explains the important role of state agencies in the pesticide product approval area.  We round out our discussion on EPA’s efforts, along with other federal law enforcement offices, to stop the proliferation of virus scams, most notably the sale and distribution of antimicrobial products falsely claiming to be effective against the spread of the coronavirus.