WASHINGTON, DC

The Environmental Pro-tection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it has banned one of the most common pesticides for use in gardens and homes. After a lengthy review, the agency has concluded that the pesticide, chlorpyrifos, which is sold under the trade names Dursban and Lorsban, poses a risk to children because of its potential effects on the nervous system and possibly brain develop-ment. ''We are turning off the manufacturer of this chemical for garden and home uses,'' said EPA President Carol Browner. She said that there are other products being manufactured that "don't pose the same risks to children and the elderly. We can do better."

Although the agency did not require a product recall, the widely used insecticide is expected to be off store shelves by the end of the year. Browner said that getting a voluntary agreement to halt production was ''the fastest possible action that we could have taken'' to phase out the chemicals use in homes, gardens, parks, schools and other areas frequented by children. According to Browner, any other approach would have resulted in years of litigation.

For decades one of the most widely used insecticides, chlorpyrifos is found on everything from pet flea collars to garden and lawn chemicals and indoor bug sprays. It also has been widely used in agriculture to protect fruits, vegetables and grains from insects.

Under the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, the EPA is required to restrict or ban a pesticide's use if it poses a specific threat to children. The increased concern about chlorpyrifos emerged after studies, some conducted by Dow Chemical Co., found that the compound causes brain damage in fetal rats, whose mothers were given the pesticide. However, some individuals are questioning the scientific validity of those studies.

Garry Hamlin, a spokesman for Dow Chemical, explained that the EPA has adopted more restrictive standards for the developmental neurotoxicity study that was conducted on laboratory rats. Using a stomach tube, the rodents were forced to injest up to 500 times the amount of chlorpyrifos that one might receive through casual exposure. So far Dow Agrosciences has been unable to develop an experimental model in which chemical exposure is consistently produced by inhalation.

Hamlin is also critical of the way the neural tissues of the exposed fetuses were eval-uated. He suggests that the apparent thinning of the neural tissue, which led to the recall, might just as easily be attributed to the way the tissue was sectioned and placed on the slides.

"The effect was so subtle, even the experts could not agree on whether (thinning) had occurred," said Hamlin. Hamlin also stated that the EPA's results were based on a study that was not performed by Dow Agroscience, in which chlorpyrifos was injected directly into the brains of rat fetuses.

Some critics view the EPA's effort to crack down on pesticide use as an unwarranted return to its activist roots, which was spawned in large part by Silent Spring author Rachel Carson's idictment of the overuse of pesticides. The disastrous effects of DDT on the environment, which were only discovered after decades of intensive use, created a new social movement dedicated to reducing chemical consump-tion by industry and agriculture.

However, some industry professionals are critical of what they view as the hypersensitivity of a small group of well-meaning individuals who don't under-stand the cost and implications of what they are doing.

"The chemicals we have are tools," said Ben Osbun, who as a pest control advisor appreciates the effectiveness of chlorpyrifos as a broad spectrum weapon against insects. Osbun believes that chlorpyrifos has been singled out because of its popularity, but questions whether the determination to remove the chemical from general use was based on credible evidence. "I wish they would use good science," said Osbun.

In the meantime, Dow has voluntarily agreed to stop producing chlorpyrifos for home consumption in an effort to keep it away from children. However, Dow will continue to produce the product for professional use in agriculture, golf courses, and sod farms.