It’s one thing when a new pesticide, herbicide, or other chemical treatment has just been approved and people start using it. You don’t really know its side effects, you don’t know how harmful it is, but you go ahead anyway to only discover that it makes babies develop a third leg or lose an ear in the womb. Hey, nobody’s perfect; in this case, the blame is on sheer ignorance. Sure, the chemicals should’ve been fully tested before being used on anything in contact with humans, but we are human, and we do make mistakes. Big ones.

Which leads us to the other scenario—when you already know how harmful a substance is and you still decide to slather it onto flowers, foods, and anything else…just because. Maybe it will help you yield a bigger crop. Maybe it’ll kill every known insect that eats whatever the crop is (assuming they haven’t yet become resistant to the chemical already, of course). Whatever the reason, it’s invalid since you already know the crap is toxic and can inflict severe damage on people.

In California, this unfortunate second scenario is currently in discussion. And since California is the country’s biggest producer of crops, this very well could affect the health of you and your family. The state is ready to approve a known carcinogenic gas known as methyl iodide on strawberries and other crops.

This gas is so toxic that even scientists won’t handle it. They actually refuse to work with any but the smallest amounts possible, and they won’t touch the stuff without wearing special protective equipment. It’s that toxic.

And the Californian government wants to put it on our food.

If used on the crops, it will also be released into the water, air, and pretty much the whole environment. So the scientists who are saving themselves from direct contact with the stuff should probably just not eat or drink or breathe outside the lab if they know what’s good for them.

Over 26,000 public letters have already been sent to California in protest of this decision. But we need to go above the state if they’re not willing to budge. You can help today by sending a comment to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Please consider writing them today through this link and asking them to revisit this toxic gas and keep it from being used on our food—and in our environment.