Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty: A Third View

Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty
Author(s): Robert A. Larmer
Source: Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Feb., 1992),
pp. 125-128
Published by: Springer
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Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty
Robert A. Larmer
ABSTRACT. Discussions of whistleblowing and employee
loyalty usually
assume either that the concept of loyalty is
irrelevant to the issue or, more commonly,
that whistle
blowing involves
a moral choice in which the loyalty that
an
employee
owes an
employer
comes to be
pitted against
the
employee's responsibility
to serve
public

interest. I argue that
both these views are mistaken and propose
a third view
which sees whistleblowing as entirely compatible with
employee loyalty.
Whistleblowing by
an
employee is the
act of com
plaining, either
within the corporation
or
publicly,
about a corporation's unethical practices. Such
an act
raises important questions concerning the loyalties
and duties of employees. Traditionally, the employee
has been viewed as an agent who
acts on behalf of a
principal, i.e.,
the employer, and
as
possessing duties

of loyalty and confidentiality. Whistleblowing,
at
least at first blush, seems a violation of these duties
and it is scarcely surprising that
in many instances
employers and fellow employees argue that
it is an
act of disloyalty and hence morally wrong.1
It is this issue of the relation between whistle
blowing and employee loyalty
that I want to address.
What I will call the standard view is that employees
possess prima facie duties of loyalty and confiden
tiality
to their employers and that whistleblowing
cannot be justified except
on the basis of a higher
duty
to the public good. Against this standard view,
Robert A. Larmer, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of
Philosophy at the University of New Brunswick. His responsi
bilities include courses in philosophy of religion and ethics. He
is

the author of various articles in philosophy of religion and of
Water Into Wine: An Investigation of the Concept of
Miracle.
Ronald Duska has recently argued that employees do
not have even a prima facie duty of loyalty
to their
employers and that whistleblowing needs, therefore,
no moral justification.2
I am going
to criticize both
views. My suggestion is that both misunderstand the
relation between loyalty and whistleblowing.
In their
place I will propose
a third more adequate view.
Duska's view is more radical in that it suggests
that there can be no issue of whistleblowing and
employee loyalty, since the employee has
no
duty
to
be loyal
to his employer. His

reason for suggesting
that the employee
owes the employer,
at least the
corporate employer,
no
loyalty
is that companies
are
not the kinds of things
which are proper objects of
loyalty. His argument
in support of this rests upon
two
key claims. The first is that loyalty, properly
understood, implies
a
reciprocal relationship and is
only appropriate
in the context of a mutual surren
dering of self-interest.
He writes,
It is

important
to
recognize
that in any relationship
which demands loyalty the relationship works both ways
and involves mutual enrichment. Loyalty is incompatible
with self-interest, because it is something
that
necessarily
requires
we
go beyond
self-interest.
My loyalty
to
my
friend, for example, requires
I put aside my interests
some of the time. . . .
Loyalty depends
on ties that
demand self-sacrifice with no expectation
of reward, e.g.,

the ties of loyalty that bind a family together.3
The second is that the relation between a com
pany and an employee does
not involve any sur
render of self-interest on the part of the company,
since its primary goal
is to maximize profit. Indeed,
although
it is convenient, it is misleading
to talk of a
company having
interests. As Duska comments,
A company is
not a
person. A company is
an instrument,
and an instrument with a specific purpose,
the
making
of
Journal of Business Ethics 11:125-128,1992.
? 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

2014 14:33:16 PM
126 Robert A Larmer
profit.
To treat an instrument as an end in itself, like a
person, may
not be as bad as
treating
an end as an instru
ment, but it does given
the instrument a moral status it
does not deserve . . .4
Since, then, the relation between a company and an
employee does
not fulfill the minimal requirement
of being
a relation between two individuals, much
less two reciprocally self-sacrificing individuals,
Duska feels it is a mistake to suggest the employee
has any duties of loyalty
to the company.

This view does not seem adequate, however. First,
it is not true that loyalty
must be quite
so
reciprocal
as Duska demands. Ideally, of course,
one expects
that if one is loyal
to another person that person will
reciprocate in kind. There are, however, many cases
where loyalty is
not
entirely reciprocated, but where
we do not feel that it is misplaced. A parent, for
example, may remain loyal
to an
erring teenager,
even
though the teenager demonstrates
no
loyalty
to
the parent. Indeed, part of being

a proper parent is to
demonstrate loyalty
to your children whether or not
that loyalty is reciprocated. This is
not to suggest any
kind of analogy between parents and employees, but
rather that it is not nonsense to suppose that loyalty
may be appropriate
even
though
it is not reciprocated.
Inasmuch as he ignores this possibility, Duska's
account of loyalty is flawed.
Second, even if Duska is correct in holding
that
loyalty is only appropriate between moral agents and
that a company is not genuinely
a moral agent, the
question may still be raised whether
an
employee
owes

loyalty
to fellow employees
or the shareholders
of the company. Granted that reference to a com
pany as an individual involves reification and should
not be taken too literally, it may nevertheless
con
stitute a
legitimate shorthand way of describing rela
tions between genuine moral agents.
Third, it seems wrong to suggest that simply
because the primary motive of the employer
is
economic, considerations of loyalty
are irrelevant.
An employee's primary
motive in working for
an
employer is generally economic,
but no one on that
account would argue that it is impossible for her
to

demonstrate loyalty
to the employer,
even if it turns
out to be misplaced. All that
is required
is that her
primary economic motive be
in some
degree quali
fied by considerations of the employer's
welfare.
Similarly, the fact
that an employer's primary motive
is economic does not imply that
it is not
qualified
by considerations of the employee's welfare. Given
the possibility of mutual qualification of admittedly
primary economic motives, it is fallacious
to argue
that employee loyalty is
never

appropriate.
In contrast to Duska, the standard view is that
loyalty
to one's
employer
is appropriate. According
to it, one has an obligation
to be loyal
to one's
employer and, consequently,
a
prima facie duty
to
protect the employer's interests. Whistleblowing
constitutes, therefore, a violation of duty
to one's
employer and needs strong justification if it is
to be
appropriate. Sissela Bok summarizes this view very
well when she writes
the whistleblower
hopes
to
stop the game; but since he is

neither referee nor coach, and since he blows the whistle
on his own team, his act is seen as a violation of loyalty.
In holding his position, he has assumed certain obliga
tions to his
colleagues
and clients. He may
even have
subscribed to a loyalty oath
or a promise of confiden
tiality. Loyalty
to
colleagues
and to clients comes to be
pitted against loyalty to the public interest, to those who
may be injured
unless the revelation is made.5
The strength of this view is that it recognizes that
loyalty is due one's employer. Its weakness is that it
tends to conceive of whistleblowing
as
involving
a

tragic moral choice, since blowing the whistle
is seen
not so much as a positive action, but rather the lesser
of two evils. Bok again puts the
essence of this view
very clearly when she writes that
"a would-be
whistleblower must weigh his responsibility
to serve
the public interest against the responsibility he
owes
to his colleagues and the
institution in which he
works" and "that [when] their duty [to whistleblow]
. . . so overrides loyalties
to
colleagues and institutions, they
[whistleblowers] often have
reason to fear the results
of carrying
out such a duty."6 The employee, accord
ing
to this understanding of whistleblowing,
must

choose between two acts of betrayal,
either her
employer
or the public interest, each
in itself repre
hensible.
Behind this view lies the assumption that
to be
loyal
to someone is to act in a way that accords with
what that person believes to be in her best interests.
To be loyal
to an
employer, therefore, is
to act in a
way which the employer deems
to be in his or her
best interests. Since employers very rarely approve of
whistleblowing and generally feel
that it is not in
2014 14:33:16 PM

Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty 127
their best interests, it follows that whistleblowing
is
an act of betrayal
on the part of the employee, albeit
a
betrayal made in the interests of the public good.
Plausible though
it initially seems, I think this
view of whistleblowing
is mistaken and that it
embodies a mistaken conception of what constitutes
employee loyalty.
It ignores the fact that
the great majority
of corporate whistleblowers
. . .
[con
sider] themselves to be very loyal employees who
. . .
[try]
to use 'direct voice' (internal whistleblowing),

. . .
[are]
rebuffed and punished for this, and then
. . .
[use]
'indirect voice' (external whistleblowing). They
. . .
[believe] initially that they
. . .
[are] behaving in
a
loyal
manner, helping
their
employers by calling top manage
ment's attention to
practices
that could
eventually get
the
firm in trouble.7
By ignoring the possibility that blowing the whistle

may demonstrate greater loyalty than
not
blowing
the whistle, it fails to do justice
to the many
instances where loyalty
to someone constrains us to
act in defiance of what that person believes to be in
her best interests. I am not, for example, being
disloyal
to a friend if I refuse to loan her money for
an investment I am sure will bring her financial ruin;
even if she bitterly reproaches
me for denying her
what is so obviously
a
golden opportunity
to make a
fortune.
A more
adequate d?finition of being loyal
to

someone is that loyalty involves acting
in accordance
with what one has good
reason to believe to be in
that person's best interests. A key question, of course,
is what constitutes a good
reason to think that
something
is in a person's best interests. Very often,
but by
no means
invariably,
we accept that a person
thinking that something
is in her best interests is a
sufficiently good
reason to think that it actually is.
Other times, especially when
we feel that she is
being rash, foolish,
or misinformed we are prepared,
precisely by virtue of being loyal,
to act contrary to
the person's wishes. It is beyond the scope of this

paper to investigate such
cases in detail, but three
general points
can be made.
First, to the degree that
an action is genuinely
immoral, it is impossible that it is in the agent's best
interests. We would not, for example, say that
someone who sells child pornography
was
acting
in
his own best interests, even if he vigorously protested
that there was nothing wrong with such activity.
Loyalty does
not
imply that
we have a duty
to refrain
from reporting the immoral actions of those
to
whom we are loyal. An employer who is acting

immorally is
not
acting in her
own best interests and
an
employee is
not
acting disloyally in blowing the
whistle.8 Indeed, the argument can be made that the
employee who blows the whistle may be demon
strating greater loyalty than the employee who
simply ignores the immoral conduct, inasmuch
as
she is attempting
to prevent her employer fifcm
engaging in self-destructive behaviour.
Second, loyalty requires that, whenever possible,
in trying
to resolve a problem
we deal directly with
the person to whom we are loyal. If, for example, I
am
loyal

to a friend I do not immediately involve
a
third party when I try to dissuade my friend from
involvement in immoral actions. Rather, I approach
my friend directly, listen
to his perspective
on the
events in question, and provide
an
opportunity for
him to address the problem in
a
morally satisfactory
way. This implies that, whenever possible,
a
loyal
employee blows the whistle internally. This provides
the employer with the opportunity
to either demon
strate to the employee that, contrary
to first appear

ances, no genuine wrongdoing had occurred, or, if
there is a genuine moral problem, the opportunity
to
resolve it.
This principle of dealing directly with the person
to whom loyalty is due needs
to be qualified, how
ever.
Loyalty
to a person requires that
one acts in
that person's best interests. Generally, this
cannot be
done without directly involving the person
to whom
one is loyal in the decision-making process, but
there may arise cases where acting in
a
person's best
interests requires that one act independently and
perhaps
even

against the wishes of the person
to
whom one is loyal. Such
cases will be especially apt
to arise when the person to whom one is loyal is
either immoral or ignoring the moral consequences
of his actions. Thus, for example, loyalty
to a friend
who deals in hard narcotics would not imply that
I
speak first
to my friend about my decision to inform
the police of his activities, if the only effect of my
doing
so would be to make him more careful in his
criminal dealings. Similarly,
a
loyal employee is
under no obligation
to
speak first
to an
employer

about the employer's immoral actions, if the only
response of the employer will be
to take care to
cover up wrongdoing.
2014 14:33:16 PM
128 Robert A. Larmer
Neither is a loyal employee under obligation
to
speak first
to an
employer if it is clear that by doing
so she placed herself in jeopardy from
an
employer
who will retaliate if given the opportunity. Loyalty
amounts to
acting in another's best interests and that
may mean qualifying what
seems to be in one's own

interests, but it cannot imply that
one take no steps
to protect oneself from the immorality of those
to
whom one is loyal. The
reason it cannot is that, as
has already been argued, acting immorally
can never
really be in
a
person's best interests. It follows, there
fore, that one is not acting in
a
person's best interests
if one allows oneself to be treated immorally by that
person. Thus, for example,
a father might be loyal
to
a child even though the child is guilty
of stealing
from him, but this would not mean that the father
should let the child continue to steal. Similarly,
an

employee may be loyal
to an
employer
even
though
she takes steps to protect herself against unfair
retaliation by the employer, e.g., by blowing the
whistle externally.
Third, loyalty requires that
one is concerned with
more than considerations of justice. I have been
arguing that loyalty
cannot require
one to
ignore
immoral or unjust behaviour
on the part of those to
whom one is loyal, since loyalty
amounts to
acting in
a
person's best interests and it

can never be in a
person's best interests
to be allowed to act immor
ally. Loyalty, however, goes beyond considerations of
justice in that, while it is possible
to be disinterested
and just, it is
not
possible
to be disinterested and
loyal. Loyalty implies
a desire that the person to
whom one is loyal take
no moral stumbles, but that
if moral stumbles have occurred that the person be
restored and not simply punished. A loyal friend is
not
only
someone who sticks by you in times of
trouble, but someone who tries to help you avoid
trouble. This suggests that
a

loyal employee will have
a desire to point
out
problems and potential prob
lems long before the drastic
measures associated
with whistleblowing become necessary, but that if
whistleblowing does become necessary there
remains
a desire to help the employer.
In conclusion, although much
more could be said
on the subject of loyalty,
our brief discussion has
enabled us to.clarify considerably the relation be
tween
whistleblowing and employee loyalty.
It per
mits us to steer a course between the Scylla of
Duska's view that, since the primary link between
employer and employee is economic, the ideal of
employee loyalty is

an oxymoron, and the Charybdis
of the standard view that, since it forces an employee
to
weigh conflicting duties, whistleblowing inevi
tably involves
some
degree of moral tragedy. The
solution lies in
realizing that
to whistleblow for
reasons of morality
is to act in one's
employer's best
interests and involves, therefore, no disloyalty.
Notes
1 The definition I have proposed applies most directly to
the relation between
privately
owned
companies aiming
to

realize a
profit
and their
employees. Obviously,
issues of
whistleblowing
arise in other contexts, e.g., governmental
organizations
or charitable
agencies,
and deserve careful
thought.
I do not propose, in this paper,
to discuss whistle
blowing in these other contexts, but I think my development
of the concept of whistleblowing
as
positive demonstration
of loyalty can easily be applied and will prove useful.
2
Duska, R.: 1985, 'Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty',
inj.
R.
Desjardins

and J. J. McCall, eds., Contemporary
Issues in
Business Ethics (Wadsworth, Belmont, California), pp. 295?
300.
3
Duska, p. 297.
4
Duska, p. 298.
5
Bok, S.: 1983, 'Whistleblowing and Professional Respon
sibility',
in T. L.
Beauchamp
and N. E. Bowie, eds., Ethical
Theory
and Business, 2nd ed. (Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey), pp. 261-269, p. 263.
6
Bok, pp. 261?2, emphasis
added.
7
Near, J.
P. and P. Miceli: 1985, 'Organizational

Dissidence:
The Case of Whistle-Blowing', Journal of Business Ethics 4,
pp. 1-16, p. 10.
8
As Near and Miceli note 'The whistle-blower may
provide valuable information helpful in improving organi
zational effectiveness. . . the
prevalence
of
illegal activity
in
organizations
is associated with
declining organizational
performance' (p. 1).
The general point is that the structure of the world is
such that it is not in a
company's long-term
interests to act
immorally.
Sooner or later a company which flouts morality
and legality will suffer.

University of New Brunswick,
Dept. of Philosophy,
Fredericton, New Brunswick,
E3B 5A3 Canada.
2014 14:33:16 PM
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspArticle
Contentsp. [125]p. 126p. 127p. 128Issue Table of
ContentsJournal of Business Ethics, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Feb., 1992),
pp. 81-160Ethics and Environmental Marketing [pp. 81-87]An
Integrative Descriptive Model of Ethical Decision Making [pp.
89-94]Proposed Codification of Ethicacy in the Publication
Process [pp. 95-104]Are Profits Deserved? [pp. 105-114]Boards
of Directors and Stakeholder Orientation [pp. 115-
123]Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty [pp. 125-
128]Theology in Business Ethics: Appealing to the Religious
Imagination [pp. 129-135]Ethics of Contract Pricing [pp. 137-
145]Managerial Secrecy: An Ethical Examination [pp. 147-
156]Book ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 157-159]
Kenneth E. Goodpaster
and Laura L. Nash ~YES
Note on the Export of Pesticides
from the United States to
Developing Countries

Fron: the 194?s to the late 1970s the pesticide industry, driven
by the fre-
quent mtroduct10n of new products, experienced rapid growth.
Investment
of R&D [research and development] was high to sustain
innovation and
cheaper manufacturing processes. In 1981 R&D budgets were
8% of sales.
The mdustry also required high capital investment because of
the rapid obso-
lescence of plant and equipment; thus, capital expenditures were
7.2% of
sales. These high technology costs, as well as high regulation
and marketing
costs, posed significant barriers to entry.
Sales of U.S. producers steadily increased from $1.2 billion in
1972 to
$5.4 billion in 1982 .... Exports steadily rose from $220 million
in 1970
to about $1.2 billion in 1980. Production of pesticides in the
U.S. rose from
675 .million pounds in 1960 to a peak of 1.7 billion pounds in
1975 and
declmed to 1.3 billion pounds in 1980.
Price~ and profits for pesticides depended largely on whether or
not pat~
ents were. mvolved. Pretax profit margins on proprietary
products that had a
~arket mche were about 48%. Older products, like DDT and 2,4-
D, func-
tioned more like commodities and returned considerably less on
investment.
~ve? though a product was patented, competing companies often
developed

s1m1lar products not covered by the original patent. Prices of
pesticides tri-
pled between 1970 and 1980; in 1981 herbicides had the highest
price and
accounted for 60% of sales.
The pesticide industry was a mature industry and U.S. markets
had
become saturated. As demand in the U.S. slowed, exports
increased. In 1978
~xports we:e 621 million pounds and were 36% of total
shipments. In 1990,
1t was prediCted, exports would be 855 million pounds and
would be 43% of
total pesticide shipments. Dollar volume of U.S. exports was
projected to
reach $2.6 billion by 1990.1
Industry analysts agreed that exports would provide the fastest
growth
for U.S. producers, since the U.S. markets were saturated.
Farmers were also
Fro;n Kenneth E. Goodpaster and Laura L. Nash, Polides and
Persons: A Casebook in Business
Ethzc:, 3rd ed. (Mc<?r~w-Hill, 1998). Copyright© 1998 by The
McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
Reprmted by permiSSion. '
370
YES I Goodpaster and Nash 371
using fewer pesticides because of increased costs, declining
acreage under cul-
tivation, a slowing of growth in farm income, and increased use

of integrated
pest management (IPM) techniques which relied more on
cultural and bio-
logical controls and less on pesticides.
There were 35 producers of pesticides worldwide with sales of
more
than $100 million per year. In 1982 total worldwide sales were
$13.3 billion,
up from $2:8 billion in 1972. Six countries-United States, West
Germany,
France, Brazil, the USSR, and Japan-accounted for 63% of
worldwide sales.
All of the developing countries combined accounted for 15% of
the world-
wide market in dollar volume. A report by the U.S. General
Accounting
Office (GAO) estimated that pesticide requirements in dollar
value for these
countries were expected to increase fivefold from 1979 to
1985.2
The Benefits of Pesticides
The pesticide industry and many agricultural scientists defended
the sale of
pesticides to developing countries, declaring that pesticides
were necessary to
feed an ever-increasing world population, most of it poor, and
that pesticides
were of great value in fighting diseases which primarily
affected the poor.
They also argued that there were important secondary benefits.
In 1979 the world population reached approximately 4.4 billion
people.
Using a minimum-intake level for survival, with no allowance

for physical
activity, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the
United Nations
estimated that there were 450 million chronically malnourished
people in
the world. Using a higher standard, the International Food
Policy Research
Institute put the figure at 1.3 billion. 3
World population doubled from A.D. 1 to A.D. 1650; a second
doubling
occurred after 200 years; the next took 80 years; and the last
doubling took
place in 1975, requiring only 45 years. Given the 1980
worldwide average
birthrate of 2.05%, according to Norman Borlaug the next
doubling would
occur in 2015, when world population would total 8 billion. At
that birth-
rate, 172 people would be born every minute, resulting in an
additional
90 million people each year. David Hopper of the World Bank
stated that
developing countries accounted for 90% of this increase.4
In 1977, Borlaug noted, world food production totaled 3.5
billion tons,
98% of which came directly or indirectly from plants. On the
basis of rates of
population growth and projected income elasticities for food,
Hopper
emphasized the necessity for an increase in food availability of
about 3% per
year, requiring a doubling of world food production to 6.6
billion tons by
2015. Increasing demand for food by developing countries was

reflected in
the fact that imports of grains to these countries rose from 10
million tons in
1961 to 52 million tons in 1977, according to Maurice Williams,
and food
shortages were projected to reach 145 million tons by 1990, of
which 80 million
tons would be for the low-income countries of Asia and Africa.
5
A major cause of these shortages was that food production in
develop-
ing countries had not kept pace with the increased demand for
food. While
per capita production of food for developed countries had
steadily increased
I
~
I
~
I
I
I
I
I
I
372 ISSUE 19 I Should We Export Pesticides to Developing
Nations?

since 1970, per capita production in developing countries
decreased by
average of SO%, with the economies of Africa and Latin
America showing.
greatest drop.
Although experts agreed that it was important to attack the
world .
problem by lessening demand, they also concurred that
deliberate efforts
slow population growth would not produce any significant
decline in
for food for the next decade or so. It was argued, then, that
ameliorating
world food problem depended on increasing the food supply.
Norman
recipient of the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize for the development of
the m2-n-'1€
seeds that were the basis for the Green Revolution, argued that
r1P'T"''~"'•n
countries would not make significant additional increases in
yields per
and that developing countries had to increase their per capita
food prc,ductic
Due to the scarcity of easily developed new land, Borlaug
concluded
~creases in wo~ld food supply could come only from increased
yields per
m these countries, and that this required the widespread use
ofpesticides, 6
There was little argument, even from critics, that pesticides
1111..1ca.:.t
food production. The technology of the Green Revolution,
which r1PT,.,.,,,.,.
on pesticides, had enabled scientists in the tropics to obtain

yields of
els of com per acre versus an average yield of 30 bushels per
acre by
methods.? The International Rice Research Institute in the
Philippines
shown that rice plots protected by insecticides yielded an
average of 2.7
per hectare (2.47 acres) more than unprotected plots, an
increase of
100%. They also found that the use of rodenticides resulted in
rice yields up
three times higher than those of untreated plots.8 (Only
producing more
would not end world hunger. What kinds of foods people eat
and the
are correlated with income. Thus, many experts maintain that
economic
opment is equally important in eliminating world hunger.)
Even with the use of pesticides, worldwide crop losses because
of
before harvest averaged about 25% in developed countries and
around
in undeveloped countries. In 1982, GIFAP estimated that total
crop losses
to pests for rice, com, wheat, sugar cane, and cotton were about
$204
Most experts (quoted in Ennis et al.) estimated an additional
loss of
of food crops if pesticides were not used.9
Pesticides also contributed to reducing losses after harvesting.
A
Academy of Sciences study identified most postharvest loss
resulting from
and observed that "conservative estimates indicate that a

minimum
107 million tons of food were lost in 1976; the amounts lost in
cereal grains;
and legumes alone could produce more than the annual
minimum caloric
requirements of 168 million people." Postharvest losses of crops
and perishables:
through pests were estimated to range from 10% to 40%. Insects
were a major.
problem, especially in the tropics, because environmental
conditions produced
rapid breeding. The National Academy of Sciences noted that
"SO insects at harL
vest could multiply to become more than 312 million after four
months." In
India, in 1963 and 1964, insects and rodents attacked grain in
the field and in
storage and caused losses of 13 million tons. According to
Ennis et al., this
amount of wheat would have supplied 77 million families with
one loaf of
bread per day for a year. 10
YES I Goodpaster and Nash 3 73
Many developing countries also relied on the sale of
agricultural prod-
ucts for foreign exchange that they needed for development or
to buy the
commodities they could not produce. Cotton, for example, was
an important
cash crop for many of these countries. Several experimental
studies in the
United States had shown that untreated plots produced about 10
pounds of
seed cotton per acre, but over 1,000 pounds were produced

when insecticides
were used. If It was estimated that SO% of the cotton produced
by developing
countries would be destroyed if pesticides were not used.
It was also argued that major indirect benefits resulted from the
use of
an agricultural technology that had pesticide use as an.
e~sential co~ponent.
This "package" was more efficient not only because It mcreased
Yields per
acre but also because it decreased the amount of land and labor
needed for
food production. In 1970 American food production, for
example, required
281 million acres. At 1940 yields per acre, which were
generally less than half
of 1970 vields it would have taken 573 million acres to produce
the 1970
] ' I • d • ld 12
crop. This was a savings of 292 million acres t?rough mcrease .
crop yie s.
The estimated 300% increase in per capita agricultural
productiOn from 1960
to 1980 also meant that labor resources could be used for other
activities.
Other experts estimated that without the use of pesticides in the
United
States, the price of farm products would probably increase by at
least l~%
and we would be forced to spend 25% or more of our income on
food. It
was held that many of these same secondary benefits would
accrue to devel-
oping countries through the use of pesticides.

Pesticides also contributed both directly and indirectly to
combating
disease; because of this, their use in developing countries had
increased. Pesti-
cides had been highly effective in reducing such diseases as
malaria, yellow
fever, elephantiasis, dengue, and filariasis. Malaria was a good
example. In
19SS, WHO initiated a global malaria eradication campaign
based on the
spraying of DDT. This effort greatly reduced the i~c~dence of
~alaria. For
example, in India there were approximately 75 million cas~s m
the early
1950s. But in 1961 there were only 49,000 cases. David Bull
estimated that by
1970 the campaign had prevented 2 billion cases and had, saved
15 .million
lives. In 1979 Freed estimated that one-sixth of the worlds
populatiOn had
some type of pest-borne disease.l
4
Notes
1. "Pesticides: $6 Billion by 1990," Chemical Week, May 7,
1980, p. 45.
2. Better Regulation of Pesticide Exports and Pesticid~
Resid~es in Imported Foods
Is Essential (Washington, DC: General Accountmg Offlce,
1979), p. 1.
3. Maurice J. Williams, "The Nature of the World Food
and.Population Prob-

lem," in Future Dimensions of World Food and Population, ed.
by R. G.
Woods (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981), p. 20.
4. Norman Borlaug, "Using Plants to Meet World F?od Needs,"
Future
Dimensions, p. 180; David Hopper, "Recent Trends m World
Food and
Population," Future Dimensions, p. 37.
5. Borlaug, pp.ll8, 128; Hopper, p. 39; and Williams, p. 11.
374
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
ISSUE 19 I Should We Export Pestiddes to Developing Nations?
Borlaug, p. 114 and pp. 129-34.
Hopper, p. 49.
Bull, p. 5.

GIFAP Directory 1982-1983 p. 19· W B Ennis W M Dowl W Kl
"Crop P t f I , , . . , . . er, . ass en,
. . ro ec IOn to ncrease Food Supplies," in Food: Politics,
Economics
N~trrtion, and Research, ed. P. Abelson (Washington, DC:
American Associ~
atwn for the Advancement of Science, 1975), p. 113.
E. R. Pa~ser et al., Post-Harvest Food Losses in Developing
Countries (Washington
D~: ~ational ~c~demy of Sdences, 1978), pp. 7, 53; Ennis et ai.,
p. 110. '
WIII~am Hol!Is, The Realism of Integrated Pest Management as
a Conce t
~nd m Pract1ce-~th So~ial Overtures," paper presented at
Annual Me~-
mg of Entomologrcal Society of America, in Washington DC
December 1
1977, p. 7. , , ,
Borlaug, p. 106.
Ennis et al., p. 113.
Bull, p. 30; Virgil Freed, in Proceedings, in p. 21.
NO~ Jefferson D. Reynolds
International Pesticide Trade:
Is There Any Hope for the
Effective Regulation of
Controlled Substances?
Introduction
... In the last decade, the international community has grown

increasingly con-
cerned with pestiddes and their effects on hrnnan health and the
environment,
with particular emphasis on the threat posed in developing
countries. Workers in
developing countries are exposed to pestiddes in the course of
their work to pro-
vide produce for domestic consrnnption as well as for export to
developed coun-
tries like the United States (U.S.). Because export dollars are so
valuable to
developing countries, there is added pressure to produce a
higher yield of produce.
These countries often obtain a higher yield through the use of
pestiddes consid-
ered too dangerous to use in developed countries. Therein lies
the crisis, large inter-
national corporations are able to sell pestiddes abroad that
cannot be sold in the
U.S. These corporations sell pestiddes that are classified as so
harmful to hrnnan
health and the environment, that their use cannot be justified for
any purpose. In
response to worldwide concerns, the United Nations has
advanced some impor-
tant initiatives to regulate the international pestidde trade. For
example, in 1985
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
published the Inter-
national Code of Conduct (Code) on the Distribution and Use of
Pestiddes, giving
partidpating countries a formal method to refuse or consent to
hazardous imports.
FAO designated this method the "Prior Informed Consent" (PIC)
procedure.
Developed and developing countries alike welcomed PIC

because this procedure
possesses a common sense approach to the problem by
providing an important
link in the transfer of information on pestiddes to developing
countries that other-
wise would not have access to the information ....
Adverse Effects of Pesticides
Pestiddes play a vital role in protecting crops and livestock, as
well as in control-
ling vector-borne diseases. In many countries, pestiddes also
present significant
From Jefferson D. Reynolds, "International Pesticide Trade: Is
There Any Hope for the Effec-
tive Regulation of Controlled Substances?" Journal of Land Use
& Environmental Law, vol. 13,
no. 1 (Fall 1997). Copyright© 1997 by Journal of Land Use &
Environmental Law. Reprinted by
permission. Notes omitted.
375
Nations?
dangers to people and the environment. The danger to people
arises from resi-
dues in food crops and livestock, as well as from the handling
of pestiddes bf
farmers. Farm workers suffer from pestidde exposure the most,
with an estimated
20,000 deaths each year. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths
occur in developing

countries due to farming practices, storage of pestiddes in living
areas, location of
residential areas near application sites, method of application
and type of equip-
ment used. Pestiddes also cause water pollution, soil
degradation, insect resistance
and resurgence, and the destruction of native flora and fauna.
Of all the potential hazards of pesticides, the most serious is the
risk to
human health. Adverse effects of exposure include cancer,
reproductive
impairment, mutation and neuro-toxicity. Recently, pesticides
have also been
found to cause endocrine disruption. The pesticide bio-
accumulates in human
tissue, mimicking estrogen and disrupts regular hormonal
activity.
The high incidence of injury in developing countries primarily
results
from inadequate information on proper application methods,
insufficient
government resources to monitor pesticide use, and the greater
availability of •
highly toxic substances than in developed nations. For example,
field and
packing plant workers in Chile have little knowledge about the
hazards of pes-
ticides. The workers wear no protective clothing and continue to
work in the
fields while airplanes or tractors pass by spraying produce. The
workers are pri-
marily young, transient, uneducated individuals with little
political influence
to improve the situation.

Common environmental problems associated with pesticides
include
contamination of water resources and insect resistance and
resurgence. Some
pesticides deplete the ozone and exacerbate the greenhouse
effect. Further,
diffuse aerial spraying of fields damages non-target crops and
may destroy
non-target species. Pesticides that enter the waterways through
run-off result
in fish kills. Wild animals and domestic livestock also ingest
pesticides by
drinking contaminated water or by eating smaller animals and
vegetation in
which toxic chemicals exist. Persistent pesticides like DDT do
not dissolve,
and concentrate in the fatty tissue of animals. DDT bio-
accumulates, moving
up the food chain until it finally becomes part of the human
diet.
Excessive use of pesticides leads to the gestruction of natural
enemies
and the resurgence of pest species, which in tum leads to
increased spraying.
This process is commonly known as the "pesticides treadmill,"
which leads to
the resistance of pesticides. In extreme cases, a pesticide can
create a more
destructive "super pest" by altering the genetic composition of
the insect. In
India, the introduction of DDT to reduce malaria resulted in the
number of
cases dropping from 7.5 million to 50,000; however, increased
resistance

eventually raised the number back to 6.5 million. Although only
182 existed
in 1965, there are now more than 900 pesticide and herbicide
resistant species
of insects, weeds, and plant pathogens, while seventeen insects
show resis-
tance to all major categories of insecticides. In addition,
resistant species of
weeds have grown from twelve to eighty-four.
The foregoing information illustrates that agrichernicals have a
pro-
found and significant impact on human health and the
environment. How-
ever, a solution must also objectively evaluate why these
substances are so
NO I Jefferson D. Reynolds 377
highly valued. Pesticides increase the food yield for an ever-
increasing popt~-
lace. Measuring the environmental and health damage that
results from pestr-
cide exposure against the famine that would result without
pesticides is a
model not yet constructed.
DDT probably best illustrates the double-edged nature ?f
pesticid~s.
Although restricted from use in the U.S. in 1972, several
developmg countnes
still use it as an effective defense against vector-borne diseases
like malaria, yel-
low fever, river blindness, elephantiasis and sleeping sickness.
Developing
countries must consider what is more beneficial to public health

by balancing
the disabling or fatal effects of vector-borne disease with th~
disabling or fa~al
effects of DDT use. This is particularly important since DDT IS
a known carcm-
ogen found to increase the risk of breast cancer in women
exposed to the pes-
ticide by a magnitude of four.
Vietnam exemplifies the abuse of pesticides. Since Vietnam's
shift to a
free market economy in 1988, agricultural exports have been
increasing with
the use of pesticides. Emphasizing agriculture, Vietnam has
~njo~ed ste~dy
economic growth. To maintain yield, farmers have applied
mcreasmg
amounts of DDT to fight pest resistance. Unfortunately, this
practice shows
little sensitivity to the long-term adverse effects on the
environment and
sustainable economic development. Soil acidification and
salinization has
occurred in conjunction with contamination of fisheries and
water resources.
The U.S. exhibits little sensitivity to the issue. The Pesticide
Action Network
(PAN), a special interest group tracking pesticide exports,
reported that the
U.S. exported fifty-eight million pounds of banned pesticides
between 1991
and 1994, making the U.S. a key contributor to the degradation
of human
health and the environment in Vietnam.
The "Circle of Poison"

As early as 1981, various pestiddes restricted in the U.S. were
_ex~orted to
developing countries, only to return as residues concentrated m
Imported
foods. This problem has been termed the "circle of poison." In
1989, the General
Accounting Office (GAO) reported that the circle of p~ison was
~ co_ncem
because the EPA was not monitoring the content, quantity, or
destmation of
exported, unregistered pesticides under sections 17 (a) and 1?
(_b) of the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).
Specifically, t~e GAO
found that the EPA "does not know whether export notices are
bemg sub-
mitted, as required under FIFRA" and that "notices were not
sent for three
pesticides (out of four) that were voluntarily canceled [by the
manufacturer]
because of concern about toxic effects."
The U.S. is a leading producer of pesticides, contributing
fourteen per-
cent of the world's export market. At least twenty-five percent
of the four to
six hundred million pounds of pesticides exported annually are
not registered
with the EPA. The EPA canceled or suspended some of these
chemicals
because of the dangers they pose to human health and the
environment, and
in some cases manufacturers voluntarily withdrew their
products. Because the
U.S. exports a high percentage of unregistered pesticides, these
chemicals have

Nations?
a high potential to reenter this country as residues on imported
foods.
example, Chile is a large market for U.S. manufacturers of
pestiddes. u1•....tuuc'"'
in the 1,460 pesticides used by Chile are Lindane, a substance
banned
the U.S.; Paraquat, which contains dioxin; and Parathion, a
toxic '-''"·~ ... , ..
phosphate that has restricted use in the U.S. In addition, Chile
uses Methyf
Bromide. Ironically, these pesticides are either banned or
restricted in the U.S:;
but may be used on produce that is eventually imported by the
U.S ....
Conclusion
The current unregulated practice of exporting chemicals to
developing coun-
tries has yielded unfortunate consequences. Although the
developed world
feels the effects of pesticide trade, a majority of the detrimental
impacts ori
human health and the environment afflict the developing world.
Unfortu- ·
nately, developing countries generally lack the resources,
information and
expertise to protect their people from dangerous chemical
exports that are
banned or severely restricted in developed countries. The
incidence of pesti.l ·

cide exposure worldwide suggests that a major public health
problem is not
receiving the attention it deserves. New methods for estimating
the true incil
dence of pesticide poisoning must be explored. The fact that
exposure is
almost exclusively in developing countries, even when pesticide
consumptiott
is so low in comparison to developed countries, would suggest
research needs
to be conducted to develop exposure intervention programs.
There is also a critical shortage of information on pesticide
exposure, result~
ing in an inability to evaluate the true environmental and human
health impacts
of pesticides. ~ittle is known about the effects of long term
exposure to pestidde
residues in food. Further, the lack of exposure data
internationally makes the
problem difficult to evaluate. As this [selection] illustrates,
exposure data is out-
dated and available only through spedal interest groups or from
international
organizations that currently suffer from budget shortfalls. For
example, the most
recent comprehensive exposure study was conducted by the
World Health Orga-
nization in 1988. That report conservatively estimated over one
million exposures
occur annually. Many developing countries do not keep track of
exposure data,
and those that do often fail to report the data to central
organizations like the
United Nations. There are indications of a worldwide pesticide
exposure crisis, but

there is little data to confirm or deny the conclusion. The
situation can be associ-'
ated with a patient who would rather not be examined for fear
of hearing the
news of a costly diagnosis. If reliable exposure data were
available, perhaps there
would be more interest in the problem leading to firm and
decisive regulation.
One approach certain to bring responsibility to pesticide trade is
to out-
law or severely restrict the export of those pesticides the U.S.
has banned,
withdrawn registration or severely restricted. Furthermore,
pesticides that
have no registration cu11ld also be included among those
outlawed for export.
This is probably the most unlikely resolution because the U.S.
has a significant
share of the global pesticide industry. Chemical lobbies and
politicians alike
have long recognized that foreign pesticide manufacturers
would be more
than satisfied to obtain the U.S. share of pesticide exports.
NO I Jefferson D. Reynolds 379
Although domestic and international efforts are moving toward
full dis-
closure of the dangers and proper use of pesticides, no single
set of rules can
ensure the safe use of pesticides under every condition.
Instruction and restric-
tion apply to specific pesticides, formulations, application
methods and com-
modities. In an effort to help resolve this problem, governments

and industry
alike should follow strict PIC procedures. Demanding good
conduct on the
part of industry in exchanging toxicological information
between states, and
having rules on trading, labeling, packaging, storage and
disposal will have a
beneficial impact. The current trend in the pesticide industry
involves more
training time for agricultural workers and greater company
efforts to monitor
pesticide use.
Current initiatives to curb pesticide trade problems offer little
assistance
in resolving exposure problems without a firm commitment by
the world's
key chemical exporting countries. The voluntary nature of
international"soft
law" schemes render them virtually unenforceable in today's
lucrative inter-
national chemical market. Moreover, until the international
market reflects a
level economic playing field, powerful domestic lobbies will
likely defeat U.S.
initiatives on a legislative level. Incentives greater than money
must exist
before key chemical producing countries would submit to a
convention man-
dating responsible trade. Perhaps proponents should stress the
potential loss
of life and the danger of domestic food safety, in hopes that
ethical and moral
motivations will prevail.

POSTSCRIP'E.
Should We Export Pesticides
to Developing Nations?
Pesticides kill things and then persevere in the environment to
kill things
in the future. That is what is good about them and bad about
them. At
this writing, the continued export of pesticides and other lethal
substances
(including tobacco and guns) is of intense concern to business
ethicists and
many legislators.
Suggested Readings
Pestiddes: For Export Only, film, Richter Productions (1981).
William Hollis, "The Realism of Integrated Pest Management as
a Concept
and in Practice With Social Overtures," presented at the Annual
Meeting
of the Entomological Society of America (1977).
Lake Sagaris, "Conspiracy of Silence in Chile's Fields:
Pesticide Spraying of
Fruit Results in High Levels of Birth Defects," Montreal
Gazette (Novem-
ber 27, 1995).
World Health Organization, Division of Health and
Environment, Pesti-
ddes and Health in the Americas, Environmental Series #12.
Food and Agriculture Organization, International Code of

Conduct on the
Distribution and Use ofPestiddes, U.N. Document, MIR8 130.
380

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