EPA to accept Mesticide Experiments on Humans

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EPA to accept Mesticide Experiments on Humans

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

www.ahrp.org

FYI

The EPA has issued a rule allowing human pesticide experiments in

defiance of Congress and the American people.

Senator Barbara Boxer stated: " The fact that EPA allows pesticide

testing of any kind on the most vulnerable, including abused and

neglected children, is simply astonishing. "

A government that gives its seal of approval to human pesticide

experiments loses its moral authority in ALL matters pertaining to

human values.

Pesticides are poisons--such compounds have absolutely no potential

benefit for those who would be the subjects of experiments.

Pesticidee experiments violate every moral standard of human decency--

they have not place in a civilized society.

Those who conduct and those who condone pesticide experiments are the

immoral torchbearers of human experiments under the Nazis.

The administration's zeal to do away with regulatory safeguards has

run amock.

As the Natural Resources Defense Council press release states: In

addition to a profound moral and ethical breach, the final rule also

violates a law passed by Congress last August requiring EPA to issue

strict rules for such tests, and ban all pesticide tests on pregnant

women, infants and children. That law passed overwhelmingly in the

House and Senate with strong bipartisan support, which included

conservative Republicans, who questioned the ethics of testing toxic

chemicals on humans.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

212-595-8974

veracare@...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Elliott Negin, 202/289-2405

New EPA Rule Turns People into Lab Rats, Violating Ethical Standards

and the Law

Statement by NRDC Attorney D. Olson on Leaked Copy of Final Rule

WASHINGTON (January 23, 2006) – More humans are about to become lab

rats for the pesticide industry, according to a leaked copy of a rule

due to be finalized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency later

this week. The document was released by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)

and Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) earlier

today.

In addition to a profound moral and ethical breach, the final rule

also violates a law passed by Congress last August requiring EPA to

issue strict rules for such tests, and ban all pesticide tests on

pregnant women, infants and children, according to the Natural

Resources Defense Council. That law passed overwhelmingly in the

House and Senate with strong bipartisan support, which included

conservative Republicans, who questioned the ethics of testing toxic

chemicals on humans.

EPA expects there to be more than 30 of these tests per year—far more

than ever before.

Below is a statement by D. Olson, an NRDC senior attorney:

" EPA is giving its official blessing for pesticide companies to use

pregnant women, infants and children as lab rats in flagrant

violation of a new federal law cracking down on this repugnant

practice. There is simply no legal or moral justification for the

agency to allow human testing of dangerous chemicals. None. "

EPA to accept pesticide tests on humans

By Heilprin, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time

is establishing criteria for tests by pesticide makers on human

subjects.

Image: A plane sprays almond groves in California's Central Valley,

the nation's most productive farmland.

By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY staff

Hazen, the EPA's principal deputy assistant administrator for

the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said

Monday the new rule for accepting tests won't allow " intentional

pesticide dosing studies of children and pregnant women. "

Last year, President Bush signed a ban on the use of human pesticide

test data until the EPA created regulations for accepting them. The

agency also was required to ban the use of pregnant women and

children as subjects, and to incorporate ethical guidelines from the

National Academy of Sciences and the post-World War II Nuremberg Code.

" We have met and exceeded Congress' direction, " Hazen said Monday.

A copy of the EPA's final draft, prepared within the past two weeks,

was reviewed by The Associated Press.

Three California Democrats, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Reps. Henry Waxman

and Hilda Solis, denounced the new rule after obtaining a copy of the

final draft. They had led the effort in Congress to require that the

EPA outlaw the use of pregnant women and children as subjects and

that it meet high ethical standards.

" The fact that EPA allows pesticide testing of any kind on the most

vulnerable, including abused and neglected children, is simply

astonishing, " Boxer said.

She said the EPA rule is inconsistent with what Congress ordered. She

said manufacturers could still conduct testing on pregnant women and

children as long as they could convince the EPA that the researchers

didn't intend to submit the results to the agency at the outset of

the study.

Hazen said, however, that the only exception to the ban on accepting

data, including that from pregnant women and children, involves cases

in which the EPA becomes aware that it might need to take additional

measures to protect public health.

However, she noted, " No pesticide company in the U.S. or in most

countries would invest money in developing data to try and prove that

EPA should regulate them more stringently. "

The EPA expects a substantial increase in the number of tests it

receives involving intentional exposure of humans to pesticides. The

draft final rule said the agency anticipates receiving 33 such

reports a year.

In the last 10 years, only about 20 such studies have been submitted

to the EPA, the agency says. Hazen, however, said those studies

include ones from the 1940s to recent years.

The new criteria for accepting the tests come after a long fight.

Toward the end of the Clinton administration, the EPA briefly stopped

accepting industry data from pesticide experiments on humans. But the

agency resumed considering that data after Bush took office in

January 2001.

Then, in a lawsuit brought by the pesticide industry, the U.S. Court

of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in 2003 that the EPA

cannot refuse to consider data from manufacturer-sponsored human

exposure tests until it develops regulations on them.

Agency officials said last November that in the meantime it would

consider each study on a case-by-case basis. But Congress stepped in

last year to impose a moratorium after Boxer and Sen. Bill , D-

Fla., demanded that the EPA cancel an industry-backed pesticide study

in which the families of 60 children in Duval County, Fla., would

receive children's clothes, a camcorder and $970 for participating.

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