Chemical Industry Sponsors EPA Study — But Wait, There’s More!
A story in yesterday’s Washington Post discusses the controversy around a recent US Environmental Protection Agency decision to accept a $2 million gift from the American Chemistry Council in order to study the impact of common pesticides and household chemicals on young children. The American Chemistry Council is the lobbying group that represents the companies that produce these toxins, and it routinely fights to make sure that the chemical industry is not heavily regulated. Many enviros feel that having industry directly sponsor government research in this way will skew the results.
But wait there’s more… What the Post story neglects to mention is that the children who participate in the study must live in homes with “potentially high pesticide use” — in all likelihood, the children of migrant farm laborers will be the test subjects. Their parents will be paid “up to” $970 to participate in the two year study — BUT MUST AGREE TO HAVING PESTICIDES SPRAYED INSIDE THEIR HOMES ON A ROUTINE BASIS. (This fact is mentioned in passing by a story in Chemical & Engineering News, as reported by Grist Magazine.) These kids will be exposed to chemicals linked to cancer, developmental defects and a host of other nasty health problems — and the government is taking chemical industry money to conduct this “experiment” so that it can pay the kids’ folks less than a thousand bucks each.
On a cheerier note, the EPA study is called the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study — known by its acronym CHEERS.
–Arthur Stamoulis, Economics Editor
November 15th, 2004 at 9:50 am
Thanks to the complaints of rank-and-file EPA staff, this study has been cancelled. In the words of Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: “[P]aying poor parents to dose their babies with commercial poisons to measure their exposure is just plain wrong.”
January 7th, 2005 at 10:12 am
Worked on Love Canal soil samples and saw what those toxin did to the residents of that development. Surely children should not be used for pesticide studies. Abuse EXPERTS and reunited sisters have teamed-up to bring a TRUE story forefront; “Arlyne Lucille: From Hellish Depths to Heavenly Heights,” is at online bookstores! Story excerpts can be viewed at Bonnie and Bill Homepage, Arlyne Lucille.