WASHINGTON -- The manufacturer of d-CON, a widely sold and popular brand of rat poison, is taking the rare step of challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to prohibit the over-the-counter sale of one of the nastiest and most effective of the poisons sold to consumers.
Most of the 30 manufactures that make such products agreed to the ban, but Reckitt Benckiser, maker of the 12 d-CON products targeted by the EPA, challenged the agency's decision March 6. The company asked for an administrative hearing to overturn the EPA decision. It's the first time in 20 years that a company has defied an EPA pesticide ban.Companies have had three years to comply with the ban, which took effect this month. It requires companies to stop selling loose pellets of rat poison to consumers, to keep pets and children from accessing them.It also ends the sale to consumers of so-called second-generation anti-coagulants: brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum and difethialone.They cause rodents to bleed to death.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
