EPA Cancels Controversial Pesticide Study

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday canceled a controversial study using children to measure the effect of pesticides after Democrats said they would block Senate confirmation of the agency's new head.

Stephen Johnson, as EPA's acting administrator, ordered an end to the planned study, a reversal from the agency's position just a day earlier when it said it would await the advice of outside scientific experts.
.....
Over the study's two years, EPA had planned to give $970 plus a camcorder and children's clothes to each of the families of 60 children in Duval County, Fla., in what critics of the study noted was a low-income minority neighborhood.
.....
Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., had joined with Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record), D-Fla., in demanding the study's cancellation as a condition for confirming Johnson's nomination by President Bush.

"I am very pleased that Mr. Johnson has recognized the gross error in judgment the EPA made when they concocted this immoral program to test pesticides on children," Boxer said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050408/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/senate_epa_nominee

[rodeodance]

1. "immoral program"---good for Boxer--flip their language on them.

[leesa]

25. You are so right. Take their phony sound-bites and point out the falsity

of those words

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Guess sunshine is the best sanitizer. A lot of things tend to fade when

they are exposed to the light of day.
Pretty damn disgusting that they would have gone thru with it if it hadn't hit public awareness.

EDIT: Sure hope someone is in a position to followup and make sure this program is not reinstituted.

[shanti]

10. SOP

they continually bombard us with this stuff, hoping that we don't notice. consequently, some of it DOES get thru! evil, i tell ya!

[AgadorSparticus]

3. I can't imagine the nimrod who thought this was a good idea....

unFREAKINGbelievable. I wonder if they are up to letting their kids be the subjects. This is so ridiculous, it hurts...

[Withywindle]

4. Glad to hear this, but...

...I can't believe it was in the works to begin with! Fucking appalling.

I also can't believe the LAME non-defense Johnson flailed about with when confronted by Boxer yesterday, and that the SOB will probably be confirmed anyway. :banghead:

[jean]

5. did DeLay have a $ connection here - like owning a pesticide company

Being an ex-pesticider, DeLay could have interest in just such a company. Follow the money.

Why the hell else would the bush government embark on such a Mengele-esque program? It's a nightmare from hell - poisoning our children for experimental purposes.

Why? For the same reason they do anything: To rape, plunder, steal and pillage every last dime before they're put out of office.

Bravo, Sen Boxer, for standing up for our kids.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Hey but we do not live in a fascist state all

impressions to the side... move along, nothing to see here, nope stop saying they are acting like fascists...

[leftofcool]

7. Thank you, Barbara! eom

[justjones]

8. Cancelling it does not make up for the fact that.....

some fucker, obviously racist, thought it was a good idea in the first place. :mad: :grr:

[katsy]

9. Thank you DEMS!!!

Now take johnson to the woodshed anyway for EVER allowing experimentation on infants.

Vote against his confirmation. He can not be trusted. Indeed, he should be tried for allowing human experimentation. Parental consent should have NO bearing on this and a court-appointed guardian should be in charge of protecting these childrens' BASIC HUMAN RIGHT to not be any governments' guinea pigs.

:spank:

[BlueIris]

13. YES. ROCK ON, SEN. BOXER! n/t

[Igel]

11. So the guy will get his appointment, a politician gets lots of rah-rah

points for canning what sounds like a horrible study, and we won't know the level of pesticides that kids are routinely exposed to.

Guess if we don't know the level of exposure, it's not hurting them. After all, what we don't know most assuredly can't hurt us.

[depakid]

12. This is NOT the end of the issue

and while I commend the Democrats' actions here- to a limited extent, putting a stop to Mengele like studies is far MUCH broader- and more pervasive than this one instance.

If ever there were an issue that would emotionally resonate with people this is it. if the Dems EVER want to regain (or ever deserve to regain) majority status they have to learn not just to be satified by an occassional bone thrown their way- but take their issues, build momentum and run with them.

If you ask me, there's hardly a better place to make a stand and ignite controversy over the filibuster that right here, right now.

Read the press release, and you'll see why:

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
For Immediate Release: Friday, April 8, 2005
Contact: Chas Offutt [phone]

Washington, DC — In a defensively worded statement, Stephen Johnson, Acting Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the end of the CHEERS study in which parents were paid to spray pesticides in the rooms occupied by their infant children under age 3.

Johnson did not admit any ethical problems with the study but concluded without explanation that the study could not “go forward…in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy.” U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) had previously announced that they would hold Johnson’s confirmation as EPA Administrator unless he cancelled CHEERS.

While CHEERS (which stands for Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study) will no go forward with EPA funding, the exact same study can proceed with private sponsors, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

In fact, the American Chemistry Council, which represents 135 companies including pesticide manufacturers, had already pledged $2 million toward the study’s $9 million overall cost.

In February, EPA published a draft policy that opens the door for accepting any experiments conducted by pesticide companies and chemical manufacturers using human subjects without establishing safeguards to ensure that the studies are conducted ethically and without harm to the subjects.

Under this policy, EPA indefinitely delays ethical rules and, instead, relies on its political appointees to flag immoral or unsafe practices on a “case-by-case” basis.

“The reason Stephen Johnson clung so stubbornly to this creepy CHEERS effort is that it served as the beacon to industry that EPA would welcome similar experiments,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the pesticide industry wants to use human testing to trump animal studies so as to justify relaxed exposure limits. “Stephen Johnson has become the pesticide industry’s ‘go-to-guy’ at EPA.”

Under the overall human dosing policy advocated by Johnson, EPA will have no protections for –

· Infants, neonates, pregnant women, and prisoners. By contrast, all medical and drug testing overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services has such safeguards; and

· Ensuring that companies have obtained informed consent or have not paid undue inducements.

As evidenced by the CHEERS fiasco, EPA lacks any independent safety or ethical review mechanism. In January, after the study had drawn controversy, EPA published a special Federal Register notice looking for experts in “ethical standards of research protocols and bioethics” because the agency lacked expertise in those areas.

To mask its lack of standards, during his confirmation hearing, Johnson claimed that the Centers for Disease Control had approved CHEERS. But, according to a January 18, 2005 letter from EPA to Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), CDC had not reviewed it.

.
“EPA should adopt the basic safeguards required by common decency before they start using human dosing experiments,” Ruch added. “Canceling CHEERS does not end the argument about the need for ethical standards in human testing; it merely opens another round in that debate.”

Find out about EPA’s open door policy on human dosing experiments

For more information about CHEERS and human testing

[Karenina]

27. BINGO!

:yourock:

[gizmo1979]

14. Yeah we win again!we're on a roll!

let's keep it going!

[Moderator]

15. kick to combine

[DeepModem Mom]

16. NYT: E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides (on babies!)

E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: April 9, 2005


WASHINGTON, April 8 - Stephen L. Johnson, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Friday that he was canceling a study of the effects of pesticides on infants and babies, a day after two Democratic senators said they would block his confirmation if the research continued.

Rich Hood, a spokesman for the agency, acknowledged that Mr. Johnson had canceled the test because of the objections to his confirmation. "They are pretty juxtaposed in time, aren't they?" Mr. Hood said. "There is clearly a connection."

But Mr. Hood said the opposition was not the only reason for the cancellation.

"Mr. Johnson said in a meeting this morning that, his confirmation aside, he had come to pose serious questions as to whether or not this study was the appropriate thing to do," he said.

A recruiting flier for the program, called the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or Cheers, offered $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a T-shirt to parents whose infants or babies were exposed to pesticides if the parents completed the two-year study. The requirements for participation were living in Duval County, Fla., having a baby under 3 months old or 9 to 12 months old, and "spraying pesticides inside your home routinely."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/politics/09pesticides.html

[caligirl]

17. Politics discussion thread on this from today, please call to thank them

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1713203

[Kadie]

18. I posted about this yesterday

and haven't been able to get it off my mind since. Thank goodness they are halting the study.



EPA Balks at Halting Pesticide-Child Study
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, April 7, 2005

(04-07) 16:36 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --


The Environmental Protection Agency won't rush to cancel a study on how pesticides affect children despite threats from Senate Democrats to hold up confirmation of the new EPA administrator until the study is canned.


Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida demanded Wednesday that EPA end the study, saying they will block a Senate vote on the confirmation of Stephen Johnson to be the agency's administrator.

snip...
The study is to determine how pesticides, which can cause neurological damage in children, and chemicals such as flame retardants, might be ingested, inhaled or otherwise absorbed through food, drink, soil, crop residue and household dust.


EPA had planned to give participating families $970 plus a camcorder and children's clothes, but critics inside and outside the agency said that might encourage low-income families to use pesticides in their homes. The two-year study was to be conducted on the families of 60 children in Duval County, Fla.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/04/07/national/w163015D82.DTL


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1377670&mesg_id=1377670

[Barrett808]

19. Florida: Cauldron of Craziness

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=18836

[DeepModem Mom]

20. Good one! Thanks, Barrett! nt

[DeepModem Mom]

21. Kicking this news for a.m. --

[Judi Lynn]

22. E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides

E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides


By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
New York Times
WASHINGTON, April 8 - Stephen L. Johnson, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Friday that he was canceling a study of the effects of pesticides on infants and babies, a day after two Democratic senators said they would block his confirmation if the research continued.

Rich Hood, a spokesman for the agency, acknowledged that Mr. Johnson had canceled the test because of the objections to his confirmation. "They are pretty juxtaposed in time, aren't they?" Mr. Hood said. "There is clearly a connection."

But Mr. Hood said the opposition was not the only reason for the cancellation.

"Mr. Johnson said in a meeting this morning that, his confirmation aside, he had come to pose serious questions as to whether or not this study was the appropriate thing to do," he said.

A recruiting flier for the program, called the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or Cheers, offered $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a T-shirt to parents whose infants or babies were exposed to pesticides if the parents completed the two-year study. The requirements for participation were living in Duval County, Fla., having a baby under 3 months old or 9 to 12 months old, and "spraying pesticides inside your home routinely."
(snip/...)

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050409/ZNYT02/504090743/1065/POLITICS10

[MissMarple]

23. Now they will just spray entire neighborhoods from the air.

How on earth a person of integrity could propose and administer this "experiment" is beyond my comprhension. It puts one in mind of the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, and his work with children in Auschwitz.

Anything for science as long as it doesn't interfere with Old Testament biblical "beliefs". :eyes:

[Kool Kitty]

29. Good points.

I was wishing that I could have been a fly on the wall in the room where this was discussed. How does one come up with the idea to experiment with horrendous chemicals on children? (Not that it whould be done to any human or animal, for that matter, but to test on children. CHILDREN!!!) Did one person bring it up and everyone else agree with this? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

[Hand]

24. A big THANK YOU to Barbara Boxer!

She bitch slapped the poop out of that POS Johnson at his confirmation hearing and said she'd block him as long as this was still under way. Looks like he figured out that she wasn't kidding!

THANK YOU, BARBARA!!

:toast: :thumbsup: :loveya: :grouphug: :pals: :headbang: :yourock: :applause: :patriot:

[Zhade]

26. Congrats, DUers - you helped save some kids' lives!

All of you who got involved, give yourselves a big pat on the back for helping stop this insane idea. You deserve it!

:yourock::yourock::yourock::yourock::yourock::yourock::yourock::yourock:

[deacon2]

28. Does this mean I don't get the kiddie-flesh lampshade

with the GOP brand on it? I had a place picked out for it next to my Mengele shrine and everything. Darn it! Oops, I swore. Sorry, Jesus.