CAMPAIGNS
Human
Pesticide Testing
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
released a draft guidance document that allows for companies
to test toxic pesticides on humans, including prisoners,
pregnant mothers, children, and infants!
Background:
| In
2004, the EPA was determined to conduct a study
entitled CHEERS- Children's Environmental Exposure
Research Study. This study, funded by the American
Chemistry Council, was set up to observe infants
and toddlers to see how harmful pesticides in the
home effected their development. The study offered
free camcorders and money to the participants. The
announcement of the study was followed by a huge
public outcry, and the EPA eventually withdrew the
study in the Spring of 2005. |
 |
Click
here to read CCE's comments to the EPA calling for the
immediate halt of CHEERS
Click
here to read CCE's press release calling for the immediate
Halt to CHEERS
Click
here to read CCE's Victory Press Release on CHEERS
After
CHEERS was withdrawn, the EPA began to draft a guidance
document that would set standards for human pesticide
testing. The draft document was released in the fall
of 2005. The draft document is laden with loopholes
and encourages unethical treatment of human subjects,
including prisoners, pregnant woman, children, and infants.
CCE
is calling for an immediate ban on all human pesticide
testing.
EPA’s
guidance document would allow:
-
Dosing experiments involving infants and pregnant
women using non-pesticide chemicals. Thus, companies
would be free to test agents such as perchlorate on
nursing mothers;
- A
repeat of the infamous (now canceled) CHEERS study
in which parents were to be paid to spray pesticides
in their infants’ rooms at home. EPA pointedly
omits any check against undue economic inducement
(as in CHEERS), i.e., paying poor people enough to
lure them into signing informed consent papers; and
- Reliance
upon unethical studies by EPA, thanks to an array
of loopholes. For example, the proposal says EPA can
use any human dosing study conducted before the new
rule’s effective date on a case-by-case basis,
applying the ethical norms prevalent at the time.
Since, prior to the rule, EPA recognized no ethical
standards at all, this means that all previous human
studies can come in through EPA’s wide open
door.
Click
here to read CCE's 2002-2006 Pesticide Report (PDF format)
Click
here to read comments that CCE and other environmental
groups submitted to the EPA, 12/05 (PDF format)
Click
here to read CCE's letter to the EPA, 12/12/05 (PDF
format)
Click
here to read CCE's press release calling on the EPA
to ban all human pesticide testing, 12/09/05
|
