Controversy Grows Over EPA Pesticide Study

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to pay families to participate in a study in which they would be exposed to pesticides are generating considerable controversy. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit alliance of pro-environment government workers, today reports the agency removed the study protocol from its Web site and distributed a rather misleading statement in response to objections voiced by its own scientists.

Among the concerns raised about the study is that a large portion of its funding comes from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group that represents pesticide manufacturers, and that participating families — who would be recruited from public clinics and hospitals — would be paid $970 and allowed to keep a camcorder used to record their children’s behavior. Furthermore, the study does not require medical intervention if the children show developmental problems or dangerous chemical levels in their urine, nor does it provide participants with information about pesticide risks or safe pesticide application.

In response to the concerns, the EPA removed the study protocol from its Web site and distributed a statement claiming participants are not required to use pesticides. But PEER notes that while 10 percent of the participants would be assigned to a control group with no or low pesticide exposure, the remaining 90 percent are eligible to participate in the study only if they spray their homes routinely.

“If EPA is going to engage in experimentation on human subjects, especially infants, it should go the extra mile to be aboveboard and protective of the subjects’ health,” said PEER Director Jeff Ruch.

In response to industry lobbying, the Bush administration has been considering loosening rules on human testing of pesticides and other chemicals. Among the pesticide makers who have been pressing the EPA to reverse longstanding agency policy rejecting human tests are Bayer CropScience and BASF Corp., which have local offices in Research Triangle Park, and Syngenta Crop Protection of Greensboro, N.C. Those companies are all members of CropLife America, a Washington-based pesticide industry group that has led the drive for human testing.