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Junkie
Location: Some place windy
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Redlemon
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Generally, I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt and consider her uninformed, but she might well be informed and simply using this study in a partisan attempt to stall Johnson's nomination as the next administrator of the EPA.
You may not like Johnson independent of partisan politics. You might not like the study because the pesticide industry is funding it, but to suggest that they are going to poison children seems a bit questionable.
Another article on the topic:
Science, Ethics, and a Stalled Nomination
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April 8, 2005
Science, Ethics and a Stalled Nomination
By FELICITY BARRINGER and KENNETH CHANG
WASHINGTON, April 7 - Last fall, when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a $9 million study of how infants and toddlers are exposed to and affected by bug sprays, carpet cleaners and other pesticides and chemicals in their homes, it sought and found a generous partner in the American Chemistry Council, which generally seeks less stringent regulations for its members' products.
The goal of the study, the agency said, was to "fill data gaps" in the scientific knowledge regulators use to make decisions about which pesticides can go on the nation's hardware shelves. The E.P.A. offered parents as much as $970, children's clothes like bibs and a camcorder to record their children's activities. The chemistry council contributed $2 million.
The study, proposed for Florida but interrupted, is now being used by Democrats to stall the nomination of Stephen L. Johnson, a career scientist with years of work in the agency's pesticide divisions, to be the E.P.A.'s next administrator.
Mr. Johnson has been the acting administrator since Michael O. Leavitt left in January to lead the Health and Human Services Department.
With Mr. Johnson under fire, the agency said it would await a report from a scientific advisory group before making its decision on whether to continue the study. But other statements and private hints from the agency on Thursday gave indications that it wouldW abandon the work, rather than face the public relations battle of fighting charges that it had planned to expose babies to toxic substances needlessly.
On Thursday afternoon, the E.P.A. released a statement saying: "In fall 2004, Deputy Administrator Steve Johnson directed that the Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study be suspended. Since that time, no work has been conducted on the study, nor is any planned."
The genesis of the study, one of dozens in the past decade in which the agency has pooled its money with that of the companies it regulates, reflects two conflicting realities.
Regulators and industry alike want as much certainty as possible about what common chemicals like those found under many kitchen sinks can do to the most vulnerable human populations. But there is an ethical dilemma about how to acquire that information without hurting the very people who are meant to be protected.
Jeff Goldhagen, who directs the county health center in the Jacksonville, Fla., area, where the study was to take place, described the research as similar to studies in earlier years that looked at the damage children suffered from secondhand cigarette smoke.
"Exposing children to pesticides was not a part of the study," said Dr. Goldhagen, the director of the Duval County Health Department and a pediatrician. "This was merely a look at those families, in which children live, who use pesticides. What is their exposure?"
In the Jacksonville area, he added, up to 80 percent of the households use pesticides "to control for insects, whether cockroaches, termites, ants, spiders."
The vocal opposition to the study by two environmental groups was echoed in the Senate this week by two Democrats, Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida.
Mike Casey, a spokesman for the Environmental Working Group, called it "a spectacularly bad idea." In modern research involving humans, Mr. Casey said, "you never want to conduct a study in which people stand to get no health benefits."
Erik D. Olson, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: "We would argue that if you want to find out what the exposures are to kids that are in homes where pesticides are heavily applied, you can find them out through a random, well-designed look at blood and urine samples of the kids. For $9 million you could do 1,000 kids easily."
The E.P.A. study was to focus on 60 children.
The whole issue of human testing has been a subject of controversy at the agency for much of the past decade. After the 1996 passage of the Food Quality and Protection Act, which provided for tighter controls on pesticides, the industry began to push for increased human testing.
Unlike medicines, for which drug companies conduct trials on people to establish safety, pesticides have in the past generally been tested on animals. The environmental agency notes the lowest levels that cause noticeable harm to animals and then sets the maximum allowable human exposure as much as 1,000 times lower.
That adjustment is designed to provide a margin of safety to allow for different biochemical processes in animals and people and for the extra sensitivity of young children to certain chemicals.
The chemical industry says human studies are more relevant for regulators guarding human health. They also may provide evidence that the agency could use to loosen some of the more stringent controls.
After the 1996 law, some chemical companies sponsored studies that paid people to expose themselves to toxic chemicals in an effort to show that higher exposure levels were still safe.
In December 2001, Dr. Johnson sought guidance from the National Academy of Sciences on whether his agency should consider such studies in making its regulatory decisions.
"What factors should the agency consider in determining whether to accept, consider, or rely on human studies performed by third parties?" Dr. Johnson wrote in a letter to the academy. "Are there clear boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable human research?"
The academy's report, released last year, said such studies were ethical provided that strict standards were used, so that there was little chance of harm to people. The academy also said the agency should accept studies conducted before the use of such standards, unless they were fundamentally flawed.
Jamie Conrad, assistant general counsel for the American Chemistry Council, said the council believed that any human testing studies submitted to the agency should comply with the federal testing guidelines.
"Our view is that the safety of human subjects is absolutely paramount," Mr. Conrad said.
The agency, under the pressure of an industry lawsuit, has proposed regulations that incorporate the academy's recommendations.
But passing scientific muster is not the same as passing public muster, the agency found shortly before the election last fall, when The Washington Post and the Environmental Working Group brought wide public notice to the agency's partnership with the chemical industry in the Florida research project and the use of inducements to families to participate.
The Democratic attacks made that point anew on Wednesday.
"I'm going to stand up for the health and safety of children in my state," Mr. Nelson said, announcing on Thursday that he, like Ms. Boxer, was holding up Mr. Johnson's nomination.
Felicity Barringer reported from Washington for this article, and Kenneth Chang from New York.
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