While profitable, Amvac's strategy has come at a cost to human health and the environment, according to EPA and state records.

From its factory on a lonely strip in Los Angeles' industrial sprawl, Amvac Chemical Corp. does a booming business selling some of the world's most dangerous pesticides.

Amvac has fueled double-digit revenue growth through an unusual business practice: It has bought from larger companies the rights to older pesticides, many of them at risk of being banned or restricted because of safety concerns.

The company has fought hard to keep those chemicals on the market as long as possible, hiring scientists and lawyers to do battle with regulatory agencies.

While profitable, Amvac's focus on older pesticides has come at a cost to human health and the environment, according to EPA and state records, regulatory investigations and a string of lawsuits.

Accidents involving the company's pesticides have led to the evacuation of neighborhoods and the poisoning of scores of field workers in California and elsewhere.

Amvac is a leading maker of organophosphates, a class of older, highly toxic pesticides that has been under regulatory scrutiny since the late 1980s...

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