Thanks to Sen Boxer and Nelson for standing up to this, they won

[caligirl]

http://www.epa.gov/cheers/images/panel_memo.pdf
(link to study pdf file)

Dkos posted this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/8/173125/3718

Breaking: EPA cancels pesticide testing program
by red clay dem


Fri Apr 8th, 2005 at 15:39:48 PDT

Update <2005-4-8 17:39:48 by Plutonium Page>: From the diaries. I was just about to post this. Fantastic news -- Plutonium Page


From the NYT:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday canceled a controversial program to test the effects of bug spray and other pesticides on infants after two Senate Democrats threatened to block his confirmation.

Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida said they would place a ``hold'' on the White House's nomination of acting EPA administrator Stephen Johnson unless he canceled the $9 million program.

Full article http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-environment-epa.html

Nice job and thank you Sens. Boxer and Nelson (FL).

It seems like standing ground keeps looking more and more like a winning strategy.

[bloom]

1. Thanks for posting this.

That's great news!!

:bounce:

[Frances]

2. Once again Dems demonstrate spine

I wonder if we will see this in the MSM

[Frances]

3. I will try to call Boxer and Nelson

to thank them on Monday.

These guys get a lot of criticism & I want them to know that some of us appreciate what they do.

[caligirl]

6. thanks, I called Boxers office in SFO, still need to call Nelson

Tried to fax a nice thank you but couldn't connect.

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. Testing bug spray on INFANTS!!!!???! That's HIDEOUS!

Thanks for this - Recommended! Not only because it's important but because it's good news, and we need to see more of that.

I wonder what this guy thinks about MERCURY?

[KoKo]

20. This is not true. See post at end of thread. It was help children not

harm them. These were tests to be run in homes that already have pesticides in current use in Florida where folks use pesticides constantly.

No one was going to be "spraying babies" with insecticide.

[Sparkly]

5. Good for them!!

I can't believe they even floated this terrible idea.

[caligirl]

7. Sen Nelsons Orlando office info you can tape your TY msg now

Bill Nelson has seven offices throughout Florida, in addition to the one in Washington, D.C. If you need help with a federal agency, please contact our main state office in Orlando. If your problem is urgent or life threatening, please call the Orlando office at 407-872-7161 (toll free from Florida at 1-888-671-4091) or fax a completed consent form to 407-872-7165. If you have a policy question, please get in touch with our Washington staff by phone, fax, or the e-mail form below.

Contact Information:

Washington DC:
United States Senate
Hart Senate Office Building
Room 716
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]


Orlando:
225 East Robinson Street Ste 410
Orlando, Florida 32801
Phone: [phone]
Toll Free in Fla : 1-888-671-4091
Fax: [phone]

[paineinthearse]

8. test the effects of bug spray and other pesticides on majority leader bug.

Save the infants!

[BamaBecky]

9. Unbelieveable! Thank you Sen Boxer! What a lady! n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. Some more info on this story in this earlier thread says study NOT stopped

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3449698
Title: "EPA Balks at Halting Pesticide-Child Study"

Excerpt from the other thread:

But the agency said Thursday it is awaiting a report from a science advisory panel before it decides whether to cancel the planned study. EPA has suspended the study, and the advisory panel's report is not expected until May, said EPA spokesman Rich Hood.

Apparently they are sending the proposal for another review, not stopping the project altogether. Here is an excerpt from the pdf file at the first link in the current thread:

....Recent news articles have mischaracterized the study and EPA is actively working to assure all interested parties that the study is designed to meet rigorous ethical and scientific standards.

Toward this end, EPA is taking the extraordinary step—because protecting the health and wellbeing of children is of paramount importance—of sending the study design for another external, independent review by an expert panel, made up of members of the Science Advisory Board, the Science Advisory Panel and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, prior to implementation. It is anticipated that this review will be completed, and that a report will be forwarded to the Administrator, in the spring of 2005. Based on this review, the Agency may refine the study design....

So, who is going to be reviewing the proposal now? More administration toadies? Anybody know anything about the members of those three groups that are going to serve as the final word?

[caligirl]

11. On Thursday this was not stopped yet according to Senator

Boxer on Ed Shultz show, she was on air between 3 and 6 pm telling us about the CHEERS plan and the EPA nominee as of air time was not willing to stop the experiment.She said she and Nelson would hold his nomination because of it.
And today that has changed , he did drop it because she and Nelson threatend his nomination.

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. Thanks, that's good news!

[caligirl]

12. NYT varifies this has been stopped.

E.P.A. Scraps Controversial Pesticide Testing Program
By REUTERS

Published: April 8, 2005

Filed at 5:23 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday canceled a controversial program to test the effects of bug spray and other pesticides on infants after two Senate Democrats threatened to block his confirmation.

Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida said they would place a ``hold'' on the White House's nomination of acting EPA administrator Stephen Johnson unless he canceled the $9 million program.

Advertisement

The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study would have paid families $970 to videotape how spraying insecticides in their homes affected infants over two years.

``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 in a statement

[KoKo]

21. Testing pesticide EFFECTS ON CHILDREN...NOT ON CHILDREN...

NYT's and Bush win again. They now will not allow anyone to study the harmful effect of pesticide use on children and infants.

It was a Bush EPA ploy to keep the Dow Chemicals and others to allow selling their harmful products for Landlords and Pest Companies to spray in every apartment by every Landlord in Florida and elsewhere.

If our kids die it's because the Bugmen (remember Delay's former job) will now be able to do what they want with no one testing for harmful effects on our kids!

[Orangepeel]

13. Nelson gets a lot of shit. I hope people here remember he did SOMETHING

right.

[flyarm]

15. i watched boxer take this guy on ..on cspan the other day..

she was like a pit bull..god i love her!!..she would not take any b.s. ..this guy tried to b.s. her and she stopped him dead in his tracks...she was wonderful...

i was sitting alone cheering her at the top of my lubgs...i swear i just love her!! she used to be my senator iwhen i lived in calif..and now nelson is mine in fla..i would trade calif in a heart beat!!

this is the first vote for nelson against * and his administration..but nelson was getting a load of heat here in fla cause this program was being done here in fla duval county..we had quite a campaign here calling his office ...

have i told you lately how much i love boxer..ohhh yeah...dont want to bore you!!

fly

[caligirl]

17. I called Nelsons Orlando office and left a long thank you for him, told

him I expected he would get many thank you's. Called my senator too. Once lived in florida, long family tree of Floridians. Red neck riveira area. The insanity is tough to tack even out here. I sometimes try to pretend Cal is on another continent, safe from the *.

[Nickster]

16. My God, what country do I live in when I have to worry about

the government paying for tests of bug spray on babies? WTF? Why did our Dem Senators have to threaten anything? This should have been a no-brainer....oh wait....:-)

[KoKo]

18. Snopes has debunked this whole thing about spraying insecticide on

babies. I'm sorry Boxer and Nelson got caught up in this and wonder why they didn't check out the info first. :-( There have been many threads about this on DU and the latest was today. I'll dig up the link...which mentions Snopes debunk.

Whatever Boxer and Nelson did, it was probably to put additional safeguards on...this was not a baby and children spraying on to test program as has been suggested.

[caligirl]

22. delete

[Nickster]

24. Thanks for the details.

I heard Randi talking about this as well a week or two ago. Guess it's really easy to believe vile stuff about our govt these days.

[KoKo]

19. Here's a link to DU thread about this and a snip and link to Snopes Debunk

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------

LINK to DU THREAD WITH MANY COMMENTS:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1711177

[caligirl]

23. The * administration has a failing grade as far as environment goes.

The testing of flame retardant in infant clothing is included in this study(read the study pdf pages 67-78) and I wonder what they will do with that. if the info suggests harm, will they toss out the results. Will they construe the results to allow childrens clothing manufactureres to stop making flame retardant clothing, wouldn't they love that. That part was not in the original study on the first group done in Duval County. Its in those pages.

The * people are suspect in everything they do. Period.

[KoKo]

25. That's why they used this to get Dems and Moms so upset. Because Dow

Chemical now gets a pass. No testing to show harmful effects means Dow and the others don't need to reformulate or take products off the market.

I'm sorry Boxer and Nelson got caught up in this. It makes them look good now, and maybe they just didn't do all the research, but how will anyone who lives in home that are regularly sprayed by Landlords know what their children are exposed to.

It was a clever campaign by the Bushies to get us all upset and win what they wanted to in the end. I hope we can all be warned that they will do more of this in the future. Inciting hysteria when it works to stop funding for any consumer protection based on real science and not their trumped up bogus creationist scientists who want the Rapture and therefore don't care how many of us die before we get there. :-(