Environmental PROTECTION Agency to test PESTICIDES on INFANTS - Madness!!!

[jackstraw45]

What kind of F-ed up times are we living in?!?!?!?

I'm sure this has been discussed but I just heard about it today amid ignoring a lot of the Shiavo MSM orgy. I'm sure I'm not the only one....this should be MAJOR news to most moral humans on this planet.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=647588

"the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study is asking 60 families with infants in the Jacksonville area to volunteer for the study under which the children would be exposed to pesticides through routine spraying in their homes. Participating families will receive up to $970."

This administration is beyond evil.

[Old and In the Way]

1. DANGER: Republican "values" at work here.

What's the health of your baby worth these days? I guess the FEDs have it pegged at $970.00.

[KoKo]

10. BTW....Cloves work against common house ants. But I don't know

anything that works against Carpenter Ants who eat you house away due to moisture build up that average person can't see until too late. But some folks say that Borax works against common ants and Carpenter ants.

I don't know much about anything working against Cockroaches except "Roach Motels" (those little boxes) and have a carpenter seal every entrance in you house where pipes come in from outside against them. But, where I live, the "flying Cockroaches" come in whenever we enter and egress our house in the Summer. So a flyswatter is your friend if you want to avoid the pesticides.

Now there are many other insects in the South that can't always be easily controlled by these methods and where poor folks live in apartments under Landlords who don't want complaints these people are subjected to Mandatory sprays...quarterly or more depending on the extent of the problem. :shrug: It's very hard to get rid of ALL pesticide use and if I can use natural, I do. And I only have the "outside perimiter" of my house sprayed...plus the crawl space, but it means I'm exposed and don't know what's in my body from walking in and out my door and having my heating/air conditioning unit in the very crawl space where they spray.

[montanacowboy]

2. I watched Barbara Boxer on CSpan

question the heir to the throne EPA Administrator and she point blank told him

"IF YOU DON'T CANCEL THAT PROGRAM I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SUPPORT YOUR NOMINATION"

BOXER - WHAT A WOMAN!

[LibertyorDeath]

3. The price the US Gov puts on the health or life of a US child

$970 you think they could have rounded it up to $1,000

sarcasm Off

[LiberalEsto]

4. That $970 isn't going to help with cancer treatments

a few years down the line.

I don't understand why this study is even needed. We know about the effects of 2,4D and other common pesticides, but they're still in use. A veterinarian friend tells me there are a lot of family pets dying young -- around age 7 -- from nasty cancers these days. Why? They play on the pesticide-laden lawns, dig where the termite chemicals have been applied, and drink from puddles loaded with runoff-carried insect sprays and other chemicals such as weedkillers.
Indoor pets get sick because people track the chemicals inside on their shoes.

I can't fathom how people can not only let their pets play in these toxic yards, but also let their toddlers and babies and children loose on their lawns.

[KoKo]

9. Do you live where Termites, Cockroaches, fire ants and other insects

are a danger to your home and family?

[LiberalEsto]

12. No, but my dog got horrible cancer

My dog Mellie had to be put to sleep in 2003 at the age of 7 because she developed a highly malignant cancer of the nose and sinuses that prevented her from eating and was pushing out one of her eyes.

We didn't realize she was ill at first because her only symptom was occasional sneezing. Then we took her to the vet for what we thought was an abscessed tooth that was making her eye water, and learned the cancer was too advanced for surgery.

I'm convinced she got this from digging around the sides of the house where termite-killing chemicals had been applied. Mellie was a Samoyed and was an extremely healthy dog until the last couple of days of her life.

I don't think this is an either/or issue of having to live with nasty bugs or having to live with cancer-causing chemicals.

We need to find safe alternatives to toxic chemicals or find ways to get along without them.

[KoKo]

13. I agree with you there! There was a movement in 70's to find safe

alternatives but it sort of faded out when Reagan came on the scene.

I try to use every alternative I can, but if your house is being eaten by termites you don't have much choice. You can't sell it with termite damage...you are required to have an inspection before you get a mortgage and so most of us are stuck with what's used to prevent or get rid of them.

Sorry about your dog. It's awful when something like that happens. I know "Chem Lawn" years ago was accused of using chemicals on lawns that were so toxic they were harming animals and potentially children. They switched to something else, but none of it is good in the long run for any of us. Folks want their green lawns and don't have time to worry if it's killing them.

[LiberalEsto]

19. When my kids were in elementary school about 10 years ago

they were waiting at the corner school bus stop one morning, when some heavy-duty lawn care company started spraying the lawn right next to them. Big clouds of the stuff were blowing over the children, including mine.

I went over to the lawn guy and insisted he stop and show me what he was spraying. One of the chemicals was 2,4D, a known carcinogen. I read him the riot act about spraying on kids. Then I called the school principal and the superintendent of schools and raised hell.

Kids are not allowed to leave the bus stop to get away from this stuff. Little kids don't even know it is dangerous. Heck, most adults are too uninformed to know the dangers of common lawn chemicals.

At my insistence, the school district contacted every lawn company in the county and told them never to spray in the vicinity of kids at bus stops again. I wish we had laws to enforce this. It seems like common sense.

[rockedthevoteinMA]

5. I read about this recently... I think in MoJo. It made my blood boil.

It said they were going to start it in Florida.

[illflem]

6. People put a lot of blame on agriculture

for pesticide contamination but by far the biggest abusers/users are homeowners. Not only are homeowners not tested and licensed to apply pesticides but they also tend to go by the more is better philosophy.

[KoKo]

7. In the Southeast US all our homes are "sprayed" quarterly. Otherwise

the Cockroaches, etc. would be eating our babies and us alive in these warm climates.

Why do you think folks in Florida put up those "screened enclosures" around their pools (as viewed from I-95).

Unless they are planning on spraying the babies on their skin with pesticides I think this is a study that "CONTROLLLED" would be a good thing.

If you don't live in the South you wouldn't understand the "pest" problem and that Apartments and Condo's and the rest of us who live in separate Homes DO need to have "quarterly pest contol" and that means us, our pets and children who live there are exposed to all this. We have to do this or we would not be able to live in the "warmer" climates.

If someone wants to come in and test my carpet and clothes for pesticide residue to see how much I and my pets and anyone coming into my home picks up pesticides on shoes and clothing and in my food, I'd be happy to comply ....IF it was a study I could trust. :shrug:

[KoKo]

8. They aren't spraying it on the families or the kids..It's what's already

there in the environment from folks trying to save themselves from disease from roaches and other pests that come into home in warmer climates where insects have total access because their numbers are bigger than ours and they need to eat to live, too. :shrug:

[Nikki Stone 1]

11. Why is the title of the article

"Florida Senator Blocks Vote on EPA Nominee" and not "Children To Be Used in Pesticide Study"?

And why, with this story out there, were we watching the death of a brain dead woman in that state?

[Igel]

14. One paragraph sums it up rather nicely.

Just like most (just many?) people think Saddam was somehow behind 911, so they assume this is going to introduce kids to pesticides. And some politicians want to score points.

"Nelson, a Democrat, said he was taking the action because EPA administrator nominee Stephen Johnson indicated at a hearing Wednesday that he would not cancel the two-year environmental study of infants' exposure to pesticides."

Catch that: they want to study not the kid's reactions to pesticides, but their exposure to it. Pumping pesticide in where the kids are wouldn't be studying the exposure of kids to pesticides.

Kids are exposed to the pesticides. Routinely. They're recruiting families that do this ... *anyway* ... and want to monitor the kids, and how much they are actually exposed to.

They know the stuff is bad for kids. But they need controlled studies to demonstrate how bad and what routine exposures are. Otherwise, no can ban, no can issue regulations.

[hopein08]

15. Slightly off topic...

The article says...

"Under Senate rules, votes to confirm nominees can be stopped by the objection of a single senator."

If that is true, why didn't Boxer (in her campaign against Condi) even threat to stop the confirmation?

That kind of caught me that Bill Nelson, by all accounts a DINO, would be willing to do this just before his re-election campaign while Boxer who was just re-elected wouldn't go that far for Secretary of State.

I'm not bashing Boxer. Just thinking.

[SemperEadem]

16. targeting low income families

why don't they offer a huge tax break to families with infants so that upper income families can take part?

I'm sorry, but $970 for the rest of an infant's life? That's how much a quality life is worth? They're putting a price tag on babies. Babies are going to be gassed like roaches?

You don't need to test on children--you can find answers by using Raid on a bug.

[NYCGirl]

17. IT'S BEEN DEBUNKED at snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/cheers.asp

Yet again an interesting mix of truth and scare has been loosed upon us all. While the November 2004 e-mail quoted above is relatively factual, its wording leaves those who receive it with an impression far removed from the truth. While the proposed investigation is real, the nature of the test subjects is misunderstood, leading to the wrong conclusion being arrived at by those who hear of it.

(snipped)

However, while the e-mail leaves the impression that poverty-stricken families are for the price of a camcorder and $970 heartlessly offering up their tots as lab rats, the little ones to be deliberately sickened by cruel scientists intent upon advancing human knowledge even at the price of 60 babies potentially dealt life-long serious physical ailments by exposure to dreadful chemicals, the truth is quite different. One of the reasons the EPA chose Duval County, Florida, as the site of this research had to do with year-round pesticide use in that area. The children who will be the subjects of the study live there. In other words, if all the clipboard-wielding EPA people stayed home and the project were cancelled before it began, these same children would be exposed to these same pesticides and in the same amounts, due to nothing more sinister than where their parents chose to settle and raise their families.

The EPA will not be administering pesticides to children. Children who are ingesting pesticides thanks to where they live will be studied by the EPA.

Given that these youngsters are coming into contact with noxious chemicals thanks to where they live, the EPA saw a good opportunity to examine the effects of such compounds on small children by studying subjects drawn from this particular group. CHEERS will track 60 of these little ones over the course of two years, measuring not only their exposure to pesticides but also to ordinary household chemicals (cleaning products and the like). The parents of kids taking part in the study will have to keep very careful logs on which products are used and in which amounts in their homes. They will also be required to videotape their tykes being studied and maintain logs of the little ones' activities. For this and for allowing researchers into the family domicile every few months to assess the child being observed and to examine the home, these parents will receive a $970 stipend and will at the end of the two years get to keep the video camera.

[KoKo]

18. Thanks....I didn't know Snopes had debunked it.

This has been posted many times on DU and I know that many have been very upset. I couldn't figure out who wanted this testing stopped by putting such hysterical headlines out and distorting what the test was all about. I can't blame folks for getting upset and worried, but I know one of the scientists who was part of the monitoring. She has children of her own and this study was to try to get some restrictions on how much pesticides are used if they are showing up in kids bloodstreams. :-( Now the testing has pretty much been halted, so we will never know.