Dr. Robert Whitfield explains how golf courses use chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic insecticide banned on food crops due to developmental hazards. The chemical is still legal on U.S. golf courses in large quantities, exposing a regulatory gap that raises public health concerns.
Let's talk about the grass. To keep a golf course looking like a perfect green carpet, essentially, it requires an immense amount of chemical intervention. Nature does not create just a perfectly manicured grass. It puts up a fight. To win that fight, the course, the superintendents of the course, the, the staff of the course have a whole arsenal of compounds they use. Two chemicals in particular dominate the landscape when it comes to maintaining golf courses. The first is chlorpyrifos. Say it with me, chlorpyrifos. It is a broad-spectrum insecticide. It is so toxic to the human nervous system, so damaging to neural development that it has been banned from use on food crops. You cannot legally spray it on an apple. You cannot spray it on corn. You cannot use it on tomatoes. But it is still legally applied in massive quantities to golf courses across the United States. So once again, you can't spray that on food. It's been banned.
