The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of farm workers and public advocacy groups against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with regard to the treatment of citrus crops with streptomycin.  In 2021 the EPA allowed this designated ‘medically important’ antibiotic with human health significance to be sprayed in orchards.  The Court ruled that this was unlawful under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and also the Endangered Species Act.  The court decision effectively vacated EPA approval for the use of streptomycin to treat citrus.

Evidence was presented that the widespread use of streptomycin in agriculture could result in long-term harm to animal and plant diversity. The widespread application of streptomycin represented a danger to workers and to patients that would otherwise not respond to streptomycin therapy, a current medical necessity.

Advocacy organizations including the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Program, the Farm Workers Association of Florida, the Center for Biological Diversity and for the Sustainable Food and Farming Program of Earth Justice applauded the Court’s decision to end use of the antibiotic as a treatment for citrus given the rise in antibiotic resistance among bacterial pathogens.  A representative of the Natural Resources Defense Council stated, “We do not need to blast medically important antibiotics into the environment – it undermines the effectiveness of these drugs and threaten the pollinators the food system requires.  We do not have to choose between a stable food supply and pollinators, we need both.”  A representative of the Sustainable Food and Farming Program of Earth Justice commented, “We are pleased that the Court’s ruling vacating the approval of the use of medically important streptomycin in citrus”.