Legislation to ban certain “rat poisons,” or rodenticides, due to the unintended destructive downstream consequences on people, animals and wildlife passed the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee earlier this month.

The bill, AB 2422, by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), would ban first and second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. If passed, California would be the first state to ban these products.

“After many years of studying the impacts of these chemicals, we know that these poisons pose a serious threat to our public health and to wildlife,” Bloom said.

Necropsy data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and other scientists has demonstrated that unnecessary poisonings continue to pose a rampant threat to pets and wildlife. These impacts have continued despite efforts in 2014 by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to limit their use to licensed pest control applicators and legislation in 2014 by Bloom to ban the application in wildlife areas and parks.

The United States California Environmental Protection Agency has also documented anticoagulant rodenticide residues in 27 avian species and 17 mammalian species, some of which are endangered species such as fishers, the San Joaquin kit fox and the northern spotted owl. Depending on the species, 70 to 90 percent of the populations of predator species such as raptors (owls, hawks and eagles), foxes, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions have been exposed to high levels of anticoagulant rodenticides throughout the state.

Rodenticides pose a serious public health threat to children and pets as well. Between 1999 and 2009, the American Association of Poison Control Centers received reports of an average of 17,000 human exposures to rodenticides each year, with 85 percent of these exposures, (i.e., approximately 15,000 per year), occurring to children less than 6 years of age. Between 1999 and 2003, approximately 3,617 of these cases per year were treated in a health care facility, and 17 per year were treated in an intensive care unit.

For pets and domestic animals, between 1999 and 2009, data shows that rodenticides caused about 160 severe (death or major effect) domestic animal incidents each year, which the EPA believes is a significant underestimate. In 2014, the AAPCC reported 50,696 dog poisonings due to rodenticides.

The bill heads to the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee.