DAMINOZIDE (ALAR)
Daminozide is considered a hazardous substance according to OSHA 29 CFR 1910. 1200. The EPA lists Daminozide as a “probable human carcinogen”. Combustion products include: carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and other pyrolysis products typical of burning organic material. Combustion may emit poisonous fumes. Daminozide is an S5 poison.
Daminozide is produced by reacting succinic acid ahydride with unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH also known as 1,1-Dimethylhydrazine). UDMH is toxic, a carcinogen and can be readily absorbed through the skin.
Although Daminozide is the active ingredient, UDMH is also present as a contaminant in both technical and formulated products. UDMH can also be present in products through hydrolysis of Daminozide and this increases as a function of time and increasing temperature. The formation of UDMH from Daminozide residues is known to occur during cooking of apples and metabolism data has shown that Daminozide hydrolyzes to UDMH in plants and in the mammalian body.
Daminozide was initially registered as a pesticide in the United States in 1963 for use on potted chrysanthemums. The first food use, apples, was registered in 1968.
In July 1984, the EPA initiated a 'Special Review' of pesticide products containing Daminozide based on findings that Daminozide and its degradate and metabolite, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), were oncogenic (caused the growth of tumors) at multiple organ sites, in multiple species and strains of test animals. The Agency issued a 'Data Call-In' in 1986 requiring additional toxicology and worker exposure data. As a result of the Special Review, the registrant, Uniroyal Chemical Company, voluntarily cancelled all food use registrations of Daminozide on November 4, 1989. The EPA revoked the tolerances (maximum residue limits) for food uses in March 1990. There are no longer any registered food or feed uses of Daminozide, and all tolerances have been revoked. The EPA had calculated the hazard of cancer among people exposed to UDMH in Alar for a lifetime is 45 per million, which is 45 times as high as the one-in-a-million hazard EPA considers "negligible."
In fact, Daminozide is perhaps one of the most controversial agrochemicals ever, eclipsed only by Agent Orange, after the “Alar scare” in 1989 in which a CBS 60 Minutes USA show labeled Alar “a potent human carcinogen”, resulting in the near bankruptcy of the US apple industry. Prior to 1989, five separate, peer-reviewed studies of Alar and its chemical breakdown product, UDMH, had found a correlation between exposure to the chemicals and cancerous tumors in lab animals. In 1984 and again in 1987, the EPA classified Alar as a probable human carcinogen.
The use of Daminozide in any consumable crop is, therefore, illegal. The dangers it poses when used to grow a short-term decidious crop, which is then ingested via inhalation, are unknown (cannabis consumers being the lab rats of shady hydroponic manufacturers and distributors who falsely market Daminozide as "phytominerals", “citrates”, tartarates”, “arginates” and “rare earth elements”).
