Remember when the so-called Environmental Protection Agency wanted to pay poor families $970 to test pesticides on their own children [1]? 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 [2]--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 [3], though the public comment period is over. To quote the Hammer of Truth blog [4], 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 [5], 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.

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