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Evil at the EPA
Remember when the so-called Environmental Protection Agency wanted to pay poor families $970 to test pesticides on their own children? Public outrage stopped the CHEERS program (who comes up with these acronyms?). Never fear, though, pesticide fans, the EPA is still trying to figure out how to test pesticides on pregnant women and children.
Now the EPA has proposed rules that would allow them to test pesticides on orphaned newborns, abused children, and the mentally handicapped--anyone unable to provide informed consent or doesn't have an advocate, basically.
On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children, without exception. But the EPA's newly proposed rule, is ridden with exceptions where chemical studies may be performed on children in certain situations like the following:
1. Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns, may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.
2. Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.
3. Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.
The proposed rules are here, though the public comment period is over. To quote the Hammer of Truth blog, this may be the most explicitly evil thing I've ever seen the government do. Oh, and it's nothing new; in the comments at Hammer, there's this story, about a neighborhood in Florida where people were sprayed with mosquito pesticides without their knowledge--and the CDC came round asking for urine samples after the fact. They were especially interested in finding pregnant women.
Call your congress members.
Comments
Read the EPA guidelines for yourself
I've read the proposed EPA guidelines. If you'd like to check out the document yourself, you can find it at:
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-GENERAL/2005/September/Day-12/g18010.htm
I don't deny that this is something to be concerned about HOWEVER it isn't quite as "let's poison children" as some advocacy groups claim.
Intentional dosing of children is ILLEGAL and any research that includes results from intentionally dosing children (ANY children) will not be supported, funded, or accepted by the EPA. Period.
HOWEVER... children can be used in observational studies so long as the researchers aren't changing the children's environment. So, for example, it is ok under EPA guidelines to monitor the health of children of farm workers so long as you don't tell them how much time to spend indoors vs out. And, as your alert states, it is ok under certain circumstances to include children as subjects in these observational studies without parental approval. For example, if they are wards of the state, then technically the government is their guardian and can give blanket approval.
I'll leave it to you to make your own decision about the ethics of observational studies on children. There are some pretty significant parental consent loopholes that I think should be resolved. Unfortunately, the period for public comment on the proposed regulations ended 12/12. Doesn't mean the public can't mount some sort of after the fact campaign though.
I think it is really important that people go to the source for issues like this. I find that very often both the pro-side (like the EPA press office) and the con-side (like enviromental advocacy groups) often put a pretty hard spin on the issues and the truth lies somewhere in between.
I already linked to the proposed rules in the post
Just so folks don't think I haven't seen them.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
So, What to do?
What can we as citizens do if we found out after the fact? Does anyone know? I mean, how would one fight what the CDC did in Florida if it happens in their town? Is there prevention?
More on this
EPA to accept pesticide tests on humans:
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
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