"For the third time in three years, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered Amazon to stop selling illegal pesticides on its online marketplace, saying the chemicals pose “a significant and immediate health risk to consumers, children, pets, and others exposed to the products.”

In its most recent “stop-sale” order, issued last month and announced Tuesday, the EPA’s Seattle office told Amazon to take down listings for dozens of products the agency said are potentially dangerous or ineffective, including some products claiming to kill viruses.

Amazon has removed those products, a spokesperson for the Seattle-based commerce giant said in a statement. Since the order was issued on Jan. 7, Amazon has put “processes in place” to “proactively block” unregistered pesticides and products making inaccurate claims about COVID-19 before they are listed for sale, the spokesperson said.

The environmental agency has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with illegal pesticide vendors on Amazon.com for almost a decade."

Katherine Khashimova Long reports for the Seattle Times February 9, 2021. [2]