A project to give poor Florida families $970 and a camcorder to see how pesticides and other household chemicals affect their infants was finally killed off for good, reports The New York Times.
DadTalk reported in November that the Environmental Protection Agency had suspended the Children’s Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS). Acting EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson put the final kibosh on this horribly-conceived study this week after two Democratic senators vowed to block his confirmation.
The study, which was in part funded by a trade organization called the American Chemistry Council, smacks of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in which black Americans were allowed to remain ill or die from the disease in the name of research. While Johnson’s new position may clear him for confirmation, it is disconcerting that this study was ever advocated by him and the EPA in the first place.
“There was a rather nasty explosion because of the way it was portrayed, Johnson spokesman, Rich Hood, tells the Los Angeles Times. “This would not have exposed children to any additional pesticides. It was merely to measure the ones already exposed. … Researchers thought it was necessary because there are critical data gaps in our understanding of how pesticides enter the body – through the skin or ingested or inhaled.”
Um, yeah, Rich, I think you missed the point here. Why are these poisonous chemicals on the market if there are “critical data gaps?” At least issue a warning to all Americans: “Keep these chemicals away from your kids” until we can retest this stuff on mice rather than human babies.
Pesticides, unlike drugs, are tested only in animals, which is why the industry doesn’t really know what these chemicals do to children. The Chemistry Council figures paying for the research may give them some control over the release of the results. That, or to be forewarned they’re about to be sued out of existence.
Unless you believe Gilbert Ross, an M.D. who sees nothing but grandstanding on the part of environmentalists and Democratic senators. Ross, who is also executive director of the American Council on Science and Health, writes in a column that oozes sarcasm:
The environmentalists’ real gripe is somewhat less likely to be articulated in the media: these groups have fought against using human toxicity data tooth and nail because they know quite well that such data will show no evidence of harm to humans from the so-called “toxins” in our environment. Their dependence on the “Precautionary Principle,” wherein a lack of data mandates excessive regulation out of “safety” concerns, would finally be shown to be misplaced.
That’s pretty twisted logic. If environmentalists wanted to beat the tar out of the chemical industry, they’d let CHEERS take place since it would more likely than not reveal causal relationships between health problems and the unpredicted combinations of toxins. Maybe, Dr. Ross, objections to this study are on purely ethical and moral grounds?
But since I’m not plugged in to Ross’s world – or the environmentalists’ – I find the political posturing irrelevant. This writer only cares that 1. children (and adults) are treated with humanity and respect and 2. That we study these chemicals in an ethical way to determine whether or not they are causing harm to humans.
*Update: Read an e-mail exchange between DadTalk and Dr. Ross.
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